North Carolina State has thrust themselves into the competition for the top men’s recruiting class in 2014 with two more verbal commitments this week.
One is Danish swimmer Soren Dahl, and the other is breaststroker Ben Cono.
Dahl is the second Danish swimmer in the class, joining Anton Ipsen, who committed about two weeks ago.
The 20-year old Dahl, like his teammate Ipsen, is a part of the dozen swimmers in the Danish “Great Danes” program, designed to put more Denmark men on podiums at the 2016 Olympics.
Dahl can swim all of the short freestyles, but his best two races are the 100, where he’s been 51.11 in long course and 49.25 in short course meters, and the 200, where he’s been 1:51.8/1:47.4.
He’s also a fantastic sprint butterflier, with a 53.9 in long course meters.
Dahl is a very impressive short course swimmer, in addition to his long course success, so his conversions are likely, at least, to hold true. That means he’s coming in with the equivalent of a 47-low in the 100 yard fly, and a 1:36 in the 200 yard free.
The other addition is Cono from Team Suffolk in New York.
He has best times of 56.95 in the 100 breast and 2:02.51 in the 200 breast. In the summer of 2013, he really made a big leap forward, though, as an all-around swimmer by progressing his long course. He took his 100 meter breaststroke from a 1:09.00 to a 1:04.39 last summer, meaning that we can be expecting another possible yards ‘pop’ from him during this year’s high school season.
Cono’s big improvement over the summer is pretty easily explained: he only started swimming competitively in January of 2010: three years ago. That’s what makes his potential so exciting.
I missed the Hennessey Stuart commitment article.
It’s right over there ———–>