The Duke Blue Devils are hitting their mark in this fall’s recruiting season, and in the last week their class has grown by another three swimmers: Alexander Pena, Isabella Paez, and Abby Artmann.
Pena comes from the Highlander Aquatic Club in Florida, and is a Junior-National-qualifying distance swimmer.
His yards bests are 4:30.74, 9:19.78, and 15:36.27, respectively, in the 500, 1000, and 1650 yard freestyles. He’s also been 1:55.7/4:05.1 in the 200 and 400 long course races. He also swims for Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, and his high school championship season will begin on Saturday with his Class 1A District 4 Championship meet.
Isabella Paez, who joins the women’s team, also comes from the state of Florida, and specifically the Metro Aquatic Club of Miami and Doral’s Reagan High School.
Paez is primarily a butterflier, having been 54.4 in the 100 and 1:59.40 in the 200 fly.
Though Florida and UNC look like they’ll dominate the conference’s butterfly scene this year and for the foreseeable future, Paez’s times make her a potential freshman scorer for Duke at the ACC level. That’s something they only had one of in either butterfly race last year – sophomore Ali Horn. This year’s women’s class, though, includes a 53.7 flyer Leah Goldman as well.
Duke’s women’s butterfly group has started to grow just like their men’s has with two-straight years of big-time recruits in that group.
And finally, Abby Artmann from Nitro Swimming in Austin has committed to Duke, even with a very good breaststroke program at the University of Texas nearby.
Artmann has yards bests of 1:02.58 and 2:14.49, and becomes part of class that already includes another very good breaststroker: Catie Miller from Nevada (1:05.1/2:15.6).
With another recent commitment from backstroker Maria Sheridan, the Dukies are putting together at least a top 10 recruiting class, and very likely will settle out closer to 6-8th. Their medley relay could probably get faster even if they used four freshmen, and they also have an IM’er Elizabeth Devitt and a distance swimmer Verity Abel.