Thursday prelims

200 FREE RELAY
Big Ten champions, Wisconsin, lit it up at the conference meet and came into the meet as the #1 seed, a mere .09 in front of the hugely favored Arizona Wildcats. Three of the top teams really need to step up in the prelims to keep their dreams of an NCAA Championship alive. Stanford, Florida, and Georgia all entered the meet in the bottom eight, 10th, 11th, and 16th respectively.
The prelims were just as fast as expected as the Pac-10 made a statement about the level of sprinting it takes to be competitive in the was as the Cal (1:28.05), propelled by the later half of their relay (Silver- 21.71 , Vollmer- 21.76 ), goes into tonight in the top spot. The Bears were closely followed by Arizona (1:28.21), while Stanford (1:28.59) propelled itself from 10th to 3rd, making a serious jump in point scoring possibilities. Tennessee, Wisconsin, Texas A&M, Auburn, and Kentucky return in the top eight. Georgia, missing the top 8 by less then .1, qualifies 9th, followed by Michigan, Florida, SMU, Arizona State, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Texas make up the top 16.


500 FREE
Going into the meet, this looked like it was going to be the Caroline Burckle show start to finish, seated a clear five seconds faster then her nearest competitor. 
Caroline Burckle started off right with a 1:47 to the feet at the 200 and never looked back finishing first in 4:35.79, setting a new pool record. Princeton's Alicia Aemisegger was second followed by Brunemann (Michigan), Heiss (TAMU), Escobar (Texas), Nauta (UGA), Grigg (NW), and Bird (AU) make up the top 8. It took a 4:41.95 to make it back top 8, .2 slower than seeding. It took a 4:44.08 from Chelsea Haser (AU) to make it back top 16.  

Who's up...
Nauta (Georgia) moves from 11th to 6th, which will make up for Ditto dropping out of the top 8. Griggs (Northwestern) moves from being unseeded to top 8.
Cal and Arizona both go from having no scores to one a piece as Massengale (Rice), Boyle (Cal), Vorster (Arizona), Kastes (Ark.), and Haser (AU) move into the top 16.
Who's down...
Kobayashi (Minn.), Sprague (North Carolina), and Jasmer (Washington) fall out of the top 8 and will not score. Ditto (Georgia) falls to 13th. While Akerfelds (TENN) and Stratton (TAMU) fall out of the top 16.

200 IM
With the top two seeds going in, the 200 IM looked like a prime spot for Auburn to begin their drive for another National Championship. Another interesting story line is the competition that will take place between fast rising star, University of Washington freshman Ariana Kukors, and her more experience sister, Auburn senior Emily Kukors.
Younger sister, Ariana, came out on top in the prelims qualifying 3rd, while older sister Emily is coming back 5th. Stanford's Julia Smit set the second pool record of the night, qualifying first with a 1:54.97. The real story of the event was the surge that was made by Arizona, with three swimmers moving from unseeded positions into scoring positions, Degolia moving all the way up to 7th. Smit was followed by Ohlgren (AU), A. Kukors (Washington), Wilkinson (TAMU), E. Kukors (AU), Kelly (Michigan), Degolia (Arizona), and Haruguchi (Oregon). It took a1:57.60 to make it back top 8 and a 1:58.87 to make it back top 16.

Who's up...
Arizona is up way up as Degolia moves from being unseeded into the top 8, while teammates Chandler and Forster move into the top 16. Also moving up was Oregon's Haruguchi from 13th to 8th and Stanford's Dwelley, who was not seeded and is now in the top 16.
Who's Down...
Moving down was Stanford's Breeden and Florida's Spofforth, both of whom tied for 9th.  Moving out of scoring positions were Mueller (Michigan), Ridgeway (Cal), Shaw (Virginia), O'Brien (Penn), and Shaughnessy (Minn), all of which were seeded between 9th and 16th.

50 Free
The pysch sheet of the 50 makes it look like a prime place for the spoiler schools to make  a big name for themselves as the top three spots are held by Kentucky (J. Bradford), Texas A&M (Aljand), and Tennessee (Magnuson). But with returning scorers Jackson and Nymeyer who finished second and third last year, this may be Arizona's time to put a little distance between themselves and the field.
It proved to be the later as Arizona's sprinting core made huge jumps with two swimmers going from being unseeded to the top 8 (Nymeyer-4th, Turner- 5th). Of the top 8 going in, only 4 made it back to the big finals, as J.Bradford, Magnuson, and Andews move down to the consolation finals.
Who's up...
Arizona with Nymeyer and Turner moving into the top 8 along with Denby (AU) moving from 15th to 3rd, while Cal's Madison Kennedy made the biggest jump, moving from ninth to first with a pool record of 21.87. Arizona earned another second swim when Taylor Baughman won a swim off to qualify 16th.  
Who's down...
J. Bradford (Kentucky), Magnuson (Tenn), and Andrews (ASU) fall from the top 8 to the top 16. H. Bradford (Kentucky) falls out of scoring position, as do Napier (Florida) and Dihn (US Navy).

400 Medley Relay
The talk on the deck makes this event out to be the first real Arizona/Auburn shoot out. Returning champions Cal lost breaststroker Jessica Hardy, but going in with an entry time of 3:34.28 proves that stand in Emily Silver is doing a fine job.
Arizona came out on top with a pool record time of 3:32.89, 2 seconds faster than rival Auburn. They are followed by Cal, Southern Cal., Minnesota, Indiana, Florida, and Stanford.
Who's up...
Indiana moves into the top 8. Virginia Tech and UCSB move into the top 16.
Who's down...
Texas A&M moves from top 8 to top 16. Tennessee and ASU move out of scoring position.

Coaches score out prelims swims into ups (A finals) and downs (B finals), relays count as 2. Without diving here we go...
Arizona- 8 up, 4 down
Auburn- 8 up, 1 down
Stanford- 5 up, 4 down
Cal- 5 up, 2 down
Texas A&M- 4 up
Florida- 3 up, 4 down
Tennessee- 3 up, 1 down