At the 2013 NCAA Championships, Brett Hawke’s Auburn women’s team had four swimmers qualify in the 100 breaststroke. Three of those graduated, and one, Abby Duncan, transferred to Missouri.
It’s not taking them long to rebuild that group, though. They brought in sophomore Annie Lazor as a transfer, signed big-time New Zealand freshman Natasha Lloyd, and now have gotten a verbal commitment from Brooke Malone out of Trinity Prep High School and the Nation’s Capital Swim Club.
Based on yards times, Malone is one of the top 10 breaststrokers in the country in the class of 2013 – though with the context that this is one of the deeper breaststroke classes we’ve seen in the last few years.
Malone has bests of 1:01.98 and 2:15.58, both of which were done at the Tom Dolan Invitational in December of 2012. She’s not quite as developed in long course as she is short course, though, with meters bests of 1:15.14 and 2:46.32.
Malone joins top-ranked Ohio recruit Zoe Thatcher in making public verbal commitments to Auburn thus far in the fall.