The Northwestern women have snagged their biggest recruit yet in the class of 2014: from SwimAtlanta’s Lawrenceville site, Aja Malone gave her pledge to the Wildcats tonight.
Malone is good in a lot of different races, but her primary events are the butterflies. There, she has been 54.1 and 1:59.1 in the 100 and 200 yard races. If merely repeated, that time in the 100 fly would put her 2nd on the Wildcats’ all-time list, and the 200 would put her 5th.
She will also be a big relay boost, with bests of 23.75 and 50.98 coming out of her junior year of high school.
In the fall of 2012, Northwestern started their class out very early, and ended up with a pretty deep one. This year, they’ve been a bit slower out of the blocks, but Malone is a good start to this year’s recruiting season.
For what it’s worth, Malone is also a solid backstroker – she was a 56.26 in the 100 yard backstroke, which made her the Georgia 5A (smaller school) state champion for Allatoona high school last year in a bang-bang finish (the top three were separated by just three-hundredths of a second).