It had been nearly ten years since Georgia Tech hosted the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships. In that time. Way back then, the 800 Freestyle Relay took place on Friday night, but this year they moved the NCAA moved it to Wednesday night. The Wednesday start made for a comparatively lightly-attended session. However, the move also saved spectators from witnessing the carnage that came from watching swimmers race the 200 freestyle three times.
USC entered the night as the top seed and for the first six hundred yards it appeared as if the Trojans were on their way. Katarzyna Wilk, a week before her 24th birthday, replaced Allie Wooden on the anchor leg. Wilk’s 1:43.73 split was 1.2 seconds faster than Wooden’s Pac-12 time. Unfortunately, for the Trojans, it was 2.2 second slower than Georgia’s Brittany MacLean (1:41.46).
The Lady Bulldogs won the event as Hali Flickinger, Kylie Stewart, Meaghan Raab and MacLean reached the wall in 6:51.80, 2.04 seconds ahead of Southern Cal (6:53.84) and California’s 6:55.18.
“That really sets the tempo for the week,” Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle said. “Winning is important, but swimming well is equally important. All four ladies swam their fastest time ever and it took every bit of that to win. It looks like that’s how the meet will go. It’s the toughest relay. It takes smarts and strategy, and we toughed it out and we earned it.”
“We were pretty comfortable going into this and needed to get one race under our belts before everything really kicks off and it was great that it was the 800 free relay,” USC’s Chelsea Chenault said “We had a new anchor that ended up working awesome as Kasia really took it on like she was supposed to be there. We were all pretty happy with the swim and it was exciting that we broke the school record. I think it will set us up for a big meet.”
California, which CollegeSwimming’s initial projections show to be a one-point underdog, saw all of its drop come from the replacement of Rachel Acker by Rachel Bootsma.
“It’s cool to have two seniors and two freshmen – kind of passing the torch of the program,” said Cal head coach Teri McKeever. “We maintained the spot we were seeded at. Now it’s just about coming and doing it again.”
As he did at Pac-12’s, Stanford head coach Greg Meehan opted to hold Lia Neal, the top seed in the 200 freestyle out of the 4x200 Freestyle Relay. That didn’t stop the Cardinal from making their way onto the podium, where they finished sixth. If the Cardinal can keep up this pace on what was arguably their worst relay, they will be in the mix for the top trophy on Saturday.
