Florida sophomore Caeleb Dressel has already established himself as one of the top freestyler swimmers in the country. Saturday night at the Ohio State Invitational, Dressel also showed off his abilities in other strokes.
Dressel won both the 100-yard breaststroke and 100-yard butterfly on Saturday’s finals. He went a 51.88 in the breaststroke and a 45.01 in the butterfly, both NCAA ‘A’ qualifying standards.
The evening started with the women’s 200-yard medley relay. The hometown crowd was treated to a victory as the Buckeyes finished in 1:40.11. Led by a 23.40 breaststroke split by Dressel, Florida won the men’s relay. The Gators posted a time of 1:24.54.
Lindsey Clary of Ohio State took home the women’s 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:07.95. Florida’s Mark Szaranek earned the men’s title in 3:44.31.
The Gators swept the 100-yard butterfly event. Natalie Hinds of Florida earned the women’s victory with a time of 52.03. Shortly after, Dressel raced to the men’s title.
Florida’s roll continued in the 200-yard freestyle. The Gator’s Amelia Maughan won the women’s event with a time of 1:46.51. Pawel Werner won the men’s title for Florida with a time of 1:34.19.
Ohio State’s Taylor Vargo won the women’s 100-yard breaststroke. The Buckeye junior posted a time of 1:01.63.
Kentucky won its first event of the day as Danielle Galyer raced to the wall in 52.45 to win the 100-yard backstroke. Jack Blyzinskyj of Florida won the men’s event with a time of 45.43, an ‘A’ time standard.
The Gators ended the evening with a sweep in the 800-yard freestyle relays. Florida’s women’s team consisted of Natalie Hinds, Jessica Thielmann, Amelia Maughan and Ashlee Linn. Corey Main, Werner, Mitch D’Arrigo and Jan Switkowski made up the men’s team for the Gators.
Going into Sunday, Florida leads on both the men’s and women’s point categories. Tomorrow’s events will start with the 1650-yard freestyle and conclude with the 400-yard freestyle relay.
His 51.8 100 breast is a Gator school record. His 45.0 100 fly is a career-best and second all-time on Florida list to Marcin Cieslak’s 44,87 that won NCAAs two years ago. In fact 45.0 for the 100 fly ranks him fourth (performer) on the aall-time SEC list and third-best among all active swimmers (well Phelps has gone 444.91 but he won’t be @. NCAAs next March!)
Texas’ Joseph Schooling (44.51 to win NCAAs last season) and teammate Jack Conger (44.55 for second) are only two guys ahead of Dressel in this race. But neither of those two has Dressel’s sprint speed and if he can figure out how o transfer that power/speed that enables him to go 18.6 in the 50 free he could be first man to break 44.0 barrier in 100 fly.
The Americam/NCAA 100 fly record is 44.18 by Stanford’s Austin Staab from ’09 NCAAs. Schooling’s 44.51is fastest all-time textile.
Too bad ya’ can’t swim more than thee individual events @. NCAAs as Dressel could possibly win BOTH 100 breast-fly and 50-100 frees. Guess he’ll just have to settle for both freestyle sprit gods (Kristian who?) and the 100 fly (sorry, Texas!) oh…and the 50 free gold/wr @. Rio!