Former Florida State swimmer Elizabeth Pepper has made her decision on where to swim next season and will transfer to the University of Arizona to begin competing in the fall of 2013. (See more about her decision to leave Florida State here.)
Pepper, who qualified for the NCAA Championships in both her freshman and sophomore seasons with the Seminoles, and is the school record holder in the 200 fly.
That 200 fly, where she has a best time of 1:56.92; though that was done at a last chance meet and not NCAA’s, it would have put her on the verge of a B-Final had it been swum in Indianapolis this season.
In addition to the butterflies, Pepper will hope to get back to her middle distance freestyle roots at Arizona as well, where she was a 1:47.9 and 4:48.8 in the 200 and 500 frees, respectively, but has plateaued at the college level.
Arizona has made a killing off of incoming transfers in the last few years; That includes swimmers like Megan Lafferty from Maryland, who placed top 16 in all seven of her events at NCAA’s last year, and Lauren Smart scored big points individually and on relays in her three seasons with the Wildcats.
The Wildcats are coming off of a 5th-place team performance at last year’s NCAA Championships that saw them fewer than 20 points out of the top three. They have many holes in their medley relays to fill (their free relays are more intact), so Pepper could continue to contribute on the butterfly leg there, much like she did for Florida State.
Pepper has been training with ATAC, the local USA Swimming team in Tallahassee, and plans to return home to the Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club and her coach Scott Vekeman to train through the U.S. Open before heading off to the desert.