Women's DI NCAAs Day One

Weird week for me. Glad this is happening to break it up.

1. 200 freestyle relay: Cal takes the first win in 1:27.36. Liv Jensen was especially impressive with her anchor 21.29 split in prelims and 21.32 in finals. She won the individual 50 last year, but with Auburn's Vanderpool-Wallace coming on so strong this year, I wondered if Jensen would still be competitive. Looks like that is a yes. Tight race for second here, with Arizona just grabbing it in 1:28.02 ahead of Texas (1:28.06) and Stanford (1:28.15). Arizona's whole relay is freshmen, which is a frightening prospect for the future. Good to see Texas rebounding after last year. They probably will not do great this year without Kathleen Hersey, but a top-ten finish would be refreshing, positive momentum for them.

2. 500 freestyle: Allison Schmitt takes her third win in this event with a 4:34.20. She broke Caroline Burckle's NCAA record in prelims with a 4:32.71 but didn't deliver that again at night. She just held off Towson's Meredith Budner, who finished in 4:34.56. Alyssa Anderson picked up some more points for Arizona in third. Georgia got a lot of points in this event with first, fifth, and seventh in the A-final, though that's always expected from their middle-distance program. Elizabeth Beisel did fairly poorly here with a 4:42.18 for eighth. The 500 is her weakest event of the weekend by a large margin, so hopefully that doesn't translate into her other two events. (And she's already topped the 400 IM prelims as I write this, so it looks like it doesn't.)

3. 200 IM: USC's Kattinka Hosszu begins what will likely be her Swimmer of the Year weekend with a win in 1:53.39. I never understood why she didn't swim this event in previous years, she would always have been competitive, even with Julia Smit the past few years. Stanford freshman Maya Dirado impresses for second with a 1:54.66, and Texas' Karlee Bispo had a nice surprise third in 1:55.07. Not a very quick final overall. I really thought Morgan Scroggy would challenge Hosszu, but she took fourth in 1:55.15, while Caitlin Leverenz only got fifth in 1:55.22. Both of them could have been under 1:55, but, like Beisel tonight, I think this is Leverenz's worst event of the weekend, and maybe Scroggy's as well. Their other events are all stacked this year, though, so it's going to be an uphill battle all over the place. This meet is really, really deep.

4. 50 freestyle: Vanderpool-Wallace wins in 21.38, just a bit off her SEC winning time. That's an amazing swim. Lara Jackson's NCAA record is only a tenth faster than that, and that came from the supersuit year that was 2009. Liv Jensen couldn't defend, unfortunately, but dropped a huge chunk of time from last year to take second in 21.50. Margo Geer out of Arizona took third in 21.93. Very impressive. No one last year went under 22, so this is a big step up.

5. 400 medley: Cal impresses with two relay wins for the night. Winning time was a 3:28.53 with an impressive backstroke lead-off of 51.59 from freshman Cindy Tran and a very fast anchor of 46.99 from Jensen. She had quite a busy night. USC in second with a 3:29.82, followed by Arizona, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Jillian Tylers put out a blazing 57.09 as Minnesota's breaststroke leg. That is RIDICULOUS. Perhaps the US Open record will go down in the individual event this weekend. Georgia currently leads in 129, followed by USC (122), Stanford (116), Cal (115), Arizona (99), Auburn (80), and Texas (68). Georgia will probably hold that lead through tonight. They could sweep the top three spots in the 200 free and will probably take the 800 free relay no problem. Their sprint strokes aren't that strong, though, so the balance might tip away from them there. I remain hesitantly hopeful about Texas' individual prospects - the prelims results so far don't look great, but Bispo's in the A-final for the 200 free and Sogar's in the A-final of the 100 breast. They're seeded eighth for the 200 medley, but their freshman backstroker isn't really delivering yet, so that will hurt them. We'll see!