Cal is hitting the breaststroke recruiting trails hard this fall to try and patch up a group that needs some help badly, and they’ve picked up a behemoth of a recruit out of the Clovis Swim Club: Connor Hoppe.
Hoppe is still a bit raw, but his potential shows up big in a specific race: the 100 yard breaststroke. There, he’s been 54.81, which last year won California’s Sac Joaquin Section and cut nearly a second off of a 10-year old record. He’s also been 1:03.48 in the 100 long course breaststroke.
None of his other events are quite that good, though in long course he’s been a solid 2:19.52 in the 200 (as compared to 2:06.2 in 200 yards), and a 24.2 in the 50 free long course.
At a long 6’5 and a strong 200+ pounds, though, the sky is the limit for Hoppe. He could be both a big breaststroke contributor as well as a sprint freestyler ultimately for the Golden Bears, even though his yards flat starts are only 21.21 and 48.39.
He joins a class that includes Matt Whittle from Davis, California.