2015 Texas Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame Invite
The 2015 Texas Invite has begun, with both the women’s and men’s 800 yard freestyle relays being the only event of the night. The meet will have prelims/finals sessions Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This will be a very fast meet, with some of the top teams in the country competing including Texas, USC, Arizona and Wisconsin. Prelims will be at 9 AM and finals at 6 PM CT (10 AM, 7 PM EST).
Women’s 800 Freestyle Relay
The women’s 800 freestyle relay got things started off tonight, and it wasn’t top seeded USC or host Texas who took the win, but the University of Arizona women who put together four solid legs to win in 7:01.50. The team of Taylor Schick (1:46.05), Bonnie Brandon (1:44.20), Cameron McHugh (1:45.33), and Daniela Georges (1:45.92) were able to take out the University of Texas (7:02.85) who came in 2nd and the top-seeded University of Southern California who came 3rd in 7:03.89. Those are the three fastest times in the country, taking out Stanford’s time of 7:04.24 from two weeks ago. Madisyn Cox of Texas led off in 1:44.93, the 7th fastest time in the country in the individual 200. The Texas and Arizona ‘B’ teams were 4th and 5th respectively, with Wisconsin in 6th.
Men’s 800 Freestyle Relay
The Arizona men made it 2-for-2 for the Wildcats to start the meet off, taking the win in 6:22.76. Texas initially appeared to take the win, coming in at 6:16.95, only to be disqualified. Ricky Maestri (1:35.65), Thane Maudslien (1:34.39), Parks Jones (1:36.59), and Nick Thorne (1:36.13) were the quartet that took the win for Arizona. Finishing 2nd was Wisconsin in 6:24.36, Texas ‘B’ was 3rd in 6:25.93 and Arizona ‘B’ was 4th in 6:28.11. USC initially took 5th, only to be disqualified like Texas. 5th ended up going to BYU. The time of 6:22.76 by Arizona places them 3rd in the country.
Despite the disqualification to Texas and USC, we saw some fast splits from them. Jack Conger led off in 1:34.20 for Texas, ranking him 4th in the country. Townley Haas had the fastest split of anyone in 1:33.14, and Joseph Schooling was 1:35.42. Jonathan Roberts split 1:34.19 swimming third, but jumped early. USC was pretty underwhelming even before they were disqualified, other than Reed Malone who had a decent leg swimming 3rd splitting 1:34.73. Jonathan Knox jumped early for USC swimming the 2nd leg.
Tomorrow’s prelim session includes the 500 free, 200 IM and 50 free.
Safe to assume that the Longhorns will have a legitimate shot at going under 6:10 in this come March.
Hass, Conger, Schooling, Roberts, and Smith. Pick 4 of them and you’ve got yourself capability of 4 sub 1:33s, or even sub 1:32s on a few splits.
Can anyone confirm my intuition that Texas is have shaved/full tapered, and half just rested? Seems to me that Conger and Schooling didn’t have their full edge last night.
6:16 six seconds faster than the official winner. Better to happen now instead of nationals!
Wonder why this was scheduled the same weekend as nationals.
Schools are limited with when they can schedule invites due to exams and the Thanksgiving holiday. Invites either had to be the weekend of November 21st and 22nd (which some coaches might consider to be too early), or this weekend. Exams for some schools, including Texas, start next week and last weekend was part of the Thanksgiving holiday. Having a meet that weekend would have required travel on Thanksgiving. While college basketball expects it’s athletes to give up their Thanksgiving to compete, luckily college swimming does not (yet at least).
Also consider colleges need yard cuts and Nats is LCM, but there was not always a US Nationals this time of year. Maybe a US Open, but this was added later.
You mean you missed the prime time broadcast on ESPN?
Schooling out in 20.6/44.7, back in 50.7. Ouch.
No live video from the meet?
Wow I know UT got disqualified but Townley Haas was smokin’.