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Matt Hutchins Faster Than Last Year’s NCAA Champ In Early Mile Heats

2017 MEN’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

Wisconsin’s Matt Hutchins uncorked a 14:31 to lead the afternoon heats of the mile, while top-10 running teams Florida, NC State and Stanford each put swimmers into guaranteed scoring position.

Hutchins was 14:31.19 to blow out the last timed final heat of the afternoon. He sits 1st overall at the moment and can finish no lower than 9th tonight. His time suggests a higher finish than that, though – his afternoon swim was faster than last year’s NCAA mile champ Chris Swanson of Penn (14:31.54). Swanson is graduated, but this event looks to be much, much faster than last year based on afternoon heats and seed times.

A few teams running in the top 10 currently will have guaranteed scorers tonight. Stanford’s Grant Shoults sits second in 14:35.82. That’s a huge fifteen-second drop for the freshman, and guarantees him no lower than 10th tonight. Stanford currently sits 6th as a team and has fellow freshman True Sweetser in the final heat tonight.

3rd-place Florida has Mitch D’Arrigo sitting third in 14:38.40. That’s faster than it took to place inside the top 8 last year by almost ten seconds, and he’ll score points regardless of tonight’s results. Ben Lawless will sneak in for points if anyone in the final heat goes slower than 14:46.78 tonight.

4th-place NC State will almost match those points after Adam Linker went 14:40.46. He sits fourth right now, and his teammate Anton Ipsen is slated to swim in the final 8 tonight.

South Carolina guaranteed themselves two scorers in this event, with a third likely. Akaram Mahmoud – who was second and a hair out of first last year – is in the final 8, and the Gamecocks got Cody Bekemeyer (sitting 5th in 14:44.17) and Tom Peribonio (sitting 7th in 14:45.37) into guaranteed scoring range.

Other teams with guaranteed scorers: Arizona with Chris Wieser and Yale with Kei Hyogo.

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SWIM FEVER
7 years ago

And last time I checked, being in the final heet does NOT guarantee you points?

“South Carolina guaranteed themselves three scorers in this event. Akaram Mahmoud – who was second and a hair out of first last year – is in the final 8”

SWIM FEVER
Reply to  SWIM FEVER
7 years ago

Fast Jared….

Pancake swimmer
7 years ago

I find it funny how the title of the article is about Matt Hutchins, but the picture for the article is Grant Shoults.

Pancake swimmer
Reply to  Jared Anderson
7 years ago

Awesome. Great picture!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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