A10 Swimming Champs

[SpiderVol]

Spider Women have a great opportunity to take back the A10 title after a strong Day 2 Finals and Day 3 prelims. This would end a 2 year drought for a program that has dominated the A10 since joining.

They currently hold a 10.5 point led over Davidson, who is much improved over prior years, and a 74 point lead over 2 time defending champions Duquesne.

Richmond isn’t winning with their typical dominating relay presence. Davidson has actually won all 3 relays so far. Richmond finished a close 2nd in two and 4th in the other. Hopefully that 18 point advantage from the relays for Davidson won’t come back to haunt Richmond.

Richmond strength so far has been great depth. While Davidson and Duquesne have had more wins, Richmond has racked up points but getting lots of swimmers into Finals at night.

I haven’t calculated the expected points (where is SF?) for tonight but going in to finals they look like they have a strong opportunity to extend the lead on Davidson and at least hold it against Duquesne.

Richmond has the following swims going into tonight’s finals (top 8 are locked to no lower than 8th, 9-16 can’t score better than 9th)
400 IM - 1,6,10 - Duq 2,3 - Dav 4,13
100 Fly - 3,5,13 - Duq 2,7,15,16 - Dav 1,9,11,12
200 Fr - 5,6,8,15,16 - Duq 2,9 - Dav 1,7
100 Br - 3,11,13 - Duq 6,12, - Dav 9
100 Ba - 4,5,10 - Duq 1,3,14,16 - Dav 11,12

Also today is the 1M Diving event which Richmond should score well in relative to its main competitors. They out scored Duq by 15 and Dav by 22 in the 3M event yesterday.

The final event of the night, the 400 Medley Relay will probably come down to these 3 teams again. Each team, depending on who is available to swim, should have an advantage on one leg of the relay (Rich 100 BR, Duq 100 Ba, Dav 100 Fly).

Based on prelim swims Duq could get out to close to a 2 sec lead (on Rich, 3 sec on Dav) in the Ba, with Richmond closing that gap in Br by at least a sec, and Dav gaining some time in the Fly leg. If you add the current prelim times up for those 3 events Rich should have about a 1 sec led on Duq and 1.5 on Dav heading into the Fr leg. I like those odds if Laura Merlin or Maggie Purcell is swimming FR.

 

[SFspidur]

Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well things are going so far. Here's my quick addition of how the scoring would go this afternoon in the individual events if all of the places hold:

UR: 187
Duq: 149
Davidson: 111
GW: 95

Davidson and Duquesne are going to be tough in the relays, so we may give back a few points there.

Still waiting to see how our divers did this morning, but it looks like they may not come out quite as strong as they did yesterday. No diving event tomorrow, so that could handicap us a bit.

I really wasn't expecting us to get back on top this year, but somehow we're in the mix. Really weird season of course, so who knows how that's affecting various teams, but Barany seems to have the team peaking at just the right time.

 

[SFspidur]

And of course just after I posted, they released the diving prelim results. We only advanced one to finals, so we're likely to lose a few points to Duquesne, but might gain a few on Davidson. GW will pick up some, but they should be far enough back in the swimming events that they won't be able to challenge.

UR: 7th
Duquense: 6th, 13th, 15th
Davidson: 10th
GW: 4th, 5th, 14th, 16th

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders have pushed their lead out to 79.5 points, with diving and the relay still to come today. So Duquesne has pretty much held pace with us today while we're opening up on Davidson...they have quality but not enough depth.

UR 433.5
Duquesne 354
Davidson 342
GW 278

Edit: Diving results are in...Beran took 5th for UR, which helped minimize Duquesne damage there (6th/12th/16th).

Edit 2: The scores above do reflect diving, but not the final relay of the day.

 

[SFspidur]

Duquense and the Spiders were in different heats of the relay, so they didn't go head-to-head, and unfortunately the Spiders came up a tenth of a second short. Duquesne 1st, Richmond 2nd, Davidson 3rd.

Scores through the end of today including diving:

UR 467.5
Duquesne 394
Davidson 374
GW 306

 

[SpiderVol]

stinks having to space out the relays bc of COVId which forced them into different heats.

wasn’t the best BR split (slower than the time in finals) which cost them the win and probably the A10 record. The BR split was about 0.4 off her time in Finals, not factoring in that you typically get an additional 0.5+ off with a good relay start.

but still a strong performance overall today.

 

[SFspidur]

It'll be a while before the mile is done, but the rest of the morning events are finished, and the Spiders are in fantastic shape led by Lauren Medlin breaking Brooke Boncher's 17-year-old school record in the 100 free en route to the top spot in finals.

Scoring for today if prelim places were to be replicated...

UR: 145
Duquesne: 104
Davidson: 81
GW: 78

Spiders should be okay in the mile with a number of solid swimmers in there, and they'll hold their own in the free relay, so really hard to see how Richmond doesn't come home with the trophy. Even a disaster like a DQ in the relay wouldn't doom them given the cushion they have and excellent positions across the board for finals today.

 

[Wood Hall]

Always sorry we dropped our men's program. Knew some of them to say hello to and to chat with and they were fun guys. They sort of had their own fraternity, even though some of them pledged if I remember right.

My younger brother played soccer at UR and many of those guys were Pikes.

 

[SFspidur]

Yeah, not many sorrier than me about that decision…lol.

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders running away with it…140 point lead with only the final relay left. Bringing the trophy home!

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders close it out with a bang, winning the 400 free relay with a school record.

1. University of Richmond 687.5
2. Duquesne University 539
3. Davidson College 515
4. George Washington University 438
5. University of Massachusetts 352
6. George Mason University 317
7. La Salle University 254.5
8. St Bonaventure University 215
9. Saint Louis University 206
10. University of Rhode Island 113

 

[SFspidur]

Barany wins coach of the year, while Alexa Connors wins rookie of the year.

Spiders set three school records today…Claire O’Shaughnessy in the 200 fly, Lauren Medlin in the 100 free (twice), and the 400 free relay.

 

[SpiderVol]

Great finish. And a young team with most swimmer back and what looks like a solid recruiting class too.

 

[SFspidur]

Yep, only two seniors...one swimmer (Ronan, who ended up our #2 backstroker with frosh Pennell doing so well this year) and one diver (Beran, our top diver). They do sometimes lose a few to injury or transfer, but hopefully they can keep the band together and add some new pieces.

They've got some solid recruits lined up for next year that at a minimum will provide great depth.

- Klosterman is pretty close to a drop-in replacement for Ronan in backstroke but also with a solid 100/200 free.

-Davis looks to be in the range of an A finalist in 400 IM and borderline A/B in the breaststrokes.

- Levins is a solid breaststroker (roughly an A finalist in the 100, B in the 200) who has versatility in the shorter distance of the other strokes and the 200 IM.

- Spicer, who switched over from W&M after they announced they were cutting but looks to be sticking with the Spiders even after W&M backtracked, will add depth in the distance freestyles.

We could use some more help on the diving boards with Beran moving on...always tough to recruit for that.

The other part looking toward next year is how the weird season affected other teams this year. It seems like we managed it really well, so some of the other squads might see a boost from getting back to a more normal season. Fordham is one obvious example...they were second at A-10s last year but opted out entirely this year.

 

[SpiderVol]

I think their other top recruit is Abby Fuller out of Charlottesville, VA. She signed according the schools their 1/7/21 announcement.

She is strong on the sprints (23.27, 50.90) and 100 Fly (55.84). Should add some scoring depth.

On paper this class doesn’t have a superstar but they have 5 swimmers who can all contribute to scoring at champs. Seeing that they only lose two seniors that should bode well next year.

 

[SFspidur]

Thanks, forgot about Abby for some reason…very solid sprinter. So presuming we don’t unexpectedly lose anybody significant we’ll be very dangerous next year.

 

[32counter]

Hoping that the annual post Christmas training visit to Siesta Key gets back on track.

 

[32counter]

 

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[KE Spider]

Barany exemplifies what UR should seek in coaches for all sports in which we participate.