Texas HOF Invitational to Feature Two Perennial NCAA Powers, Along With Texas Ex's and Australian Champs

While much of the country is off swimming at USA Swimming Short Course Nationals this upcoming weekend, the NCAA Invite season will continue down in Austin in the form of the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational.

This is one of the bigger NCAA meets between now and March, and will have a loaded field of both current and former collegiate swimmers, as well as some friends from down under.

NCAA Team’s participating will be:

In addition, Texas Ex’s Ricky Berens, Dave Walters, Garrett Weber-Gale and Eric Shanteau will also be swimming in the meet. Given that all four are going to be swimming at the World Championships in Dubai, I would’ve expected them to compete at USA-Swimming Nationals this weekend instead, but given that their coach Eddie Reese is committed to being in Austin, perhaps they decided to compete there instead.

Among the more intriguing story lines is that Kathleen Hersey will be swimming in this meet against her former mates. Though it had long been rumored that the former USA-Swimming National Champion would no longer be competing for Texas at the NCAA level, it was only within the last few weeks that she was officially removed from the team’s roster. She has, however, remained in Austin to train with Texas men’s coach Eddie Reese and their USA affiliate Longhorn Aquatics, and as such will join many of her LA teammates at this meet. Hersey will be swimming both backstrokes, the 200 fly, and the 200 free this weekend.

The Texas Invite will also welcome some competitors from down under as the Sydney University swimming club will send a roster of elite athletes to the Jamail Swim Center. Sydney University was recently crowned the Swimming Australia Unity Go Club of the Year at Australia’s equivalent of the Golden Goggles Awards, making them the only team to ever win the award in back-to-back seasons. They are also the defending Austrlian Uni Games Champions, both of which are indicators that they will be an outstanding addition to this meet.

Among the best races to watch for the weekend:

• The women’s 500 free on Thursday will feature two of the best distance swimmers in the country: Leah Gingrich and Alyssa Anderson. The two have season best times within two tenths of each other and should push through the finish. There’s nothing worse than a bad 500, but there’s nothing better than a great 500 race, and this sets up to be the latter.
• We have yet to see any of the Texas Men’s relays at full strength and with solid training under their belts this season. All five relays will be a great battle between them and Arizona, and will be big indicators of what to expect come March.
• The men’s individual 200 free is going to be a heck of a race. Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or from Arizona will be the only collegiate swimmers with a chance at cracking the top 3 against the former Longhorns Dave Walters, Ricky Berens, and Garrett Weber-Gale. The three Texans are preparing for the World Short Course Championships that will take place 2 weeks after this meet and so there should be some really fast times thrown up. Bar-Or has the fourth best collegiate time in the country this season, and will be eager to take a shot at the “professionals”. I’m looking for somebody to dip into a 1:31 high, but a few 1:32 lows is a given.
• The women’s 200 free will be Hersey’s first event since leaving the Texas team, and will be our first indicator of whether she missed a taper last season or simply isn’t as good short course as she is long course. Either way, she will get a great push from her former Texas teammate Karlee Bispo, who will be one of the best in the NCAA this year who doesn’t go to a school starting with “Geor” and ending with “Gia”. While all indicators are that Hersey’s reasons for leaving had nothing to do with her teammates, I still imagine both swimmers are going to have a huge drive to win that race over the other. Arizona’s freshman phenom Margo Geer, who is the early favorite for freshman of the year, will also stick her nose in to make this a three swimmer race.’
• The two swimmers to watch from Sydney University are breaststroker Meagan Ramsay and sprinter Sam McConell. The two each won 4 golds at last year’s Australian University Games. Ramsay, in fact, won an astonishing 12 medals (4 of each color), which is a pretty impressive showing by any standards.

Live results for the meet are available here: Live Results. Psych sheets can be seen here.

There are also a number of very good teams that will only be participating in the diving portions of the meet only. This list includes Boston University, Harvard, Houston, California, Purdue, TCU, Miami (Fla.) and Wyoming.