First dual meet in the books against Vandy, some good times but also a lot of off event swims. Just a precursor to Friday's meet against our friends from Austin. Lots of talent in the pool and should be an unbelievable atmosphere if the 12th Man shows up in force. 6pm, Student Rec Center, BTHO tu!

Also the men start their season at Incarnate Word on Thursday. Always nice to break up the training grind with some competition.

Too soon to swim against the sips.

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Too soon to swim against the sips.

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Not for the women. The A&M swimmers will win. The A&M divers will lose. A&M wins overall.

spice I agree that our women win. I just don't agree that we need to have anything to do with the scoundrels from their athletic dept. plenty of other great teams to swim against.

I disagree - at least for sports like swimming. I am perfectly happy to show the sips how broad and deep our athletics programs are. My primary disgust with Texas is with Deloss and football.

Swimmers generally like each other, even from (former) rivals.

I'm just disappointed that if this were a mens meet our guys would get trounced.

It will be fun to see the seniors from both schools in the pool together one last time. What an incredible collection of talent on both sides of the pool. The girls that grew up in Texas have been swimming against each other for a long time now. Just look at how many Texas state champion swimmers are on both teams. Good luck to the girls on Friday and btho tu.

Go watch these ladies swim, they are awesome! We saw the Vandy meet last weekend, and had a great time.

Was thinking about driving up from tomorrow to see the women's swim meet. Does anyone know how long it will last?

I would guess the meet will run 2 1/2 hours. I think they are diving both springboards, but no platform. So they'll probably take breaks for the diving.

Thanks spicewood

Texas swam well against UNC Thursday. Their A medley relay was fast with a very nice BR split from freshman Madisyn Cox (28.9). Gretchen Jacques is swimming lots of sprint free (23.03 split). Who will be the Ags back sprinter if Paige swims fly?

Henry didn't swim at Vanderbilt. So I'd expect her in some mix of the 500/1000/400IM.

Texas is improved in breaststroke but Breeja should own the 100/200.

Texas has a new freshman backstroker - Tasija Karosas that swam a very fast early season 54.87 100 back. Also had a fast early season 200.

Texas had 3 sub-24 50 free times against UNC. So their sprinting looks good now. The 200 free relay should be a good race. Not sure who the Ags will put on it - but Dittmer, Bosma, Oliver all had low 23 relay splits against Vandy.

I'm anxious to see how Sycerika does.

Texas' swimmers could be a bit tired having raced Thursday. It looks like Texas didn't swim off events in that win over UNC. I bet the A&M start list looks much different than it did against Vandy.

Unless the new A&M divers are surprisingly good, I don't see how Texas doesn't dominate. The Aggies didn't dive at Vandy so we don't know much about them now. Freshman Bromberg is a 2013 national champion and was 3rd at Worlds trials. She and Emma Ivory-Ganja both finished a strong 1-2 against UNC on both boards.

Should be a big, fun rivalry meet!

My 3 big take away items from a great college duel meet:

1) Sprint freestyle, baby! Bosma, Dittmer, Oliver, Ibanez all with various good races and splits.

2) While the freshmen divers didn't win they competed and definitely looked like they belonged out there with Texas. Some good talent that can make a difference in Feb/Mar, especially when Kathryn Connolly gets back.

3) With no Sarah Henry on the entry list, Cammile Adams stepped up like a champion. Just out touched in the 1000, but came back to win the 2 Fly and the 500. Senior leadership.

I'm sure others have their own bright spots to touch on. Great atmosphere and a lot of fun.

The meet was way closer than I expected. Texas came to race and was impressive in diving, distance free, and backstroke. Breeja dominated. Aggie sprinters better than expected.

Big crowd that got loud on the last relay.

Texas had great swims from Lily Moldenhaeur and Pawlowicz - who beat Camille in the 1000 free. Camille just blew the race, misjudging how much Pawlowicz wanted the race.

Aggies look weak in backstroke. Texas was 1-2 in both backstroke races.

Dittmer's 22.92 50 free was excellent. A bit surprised her 100 was so slow at 51.51.

Aggie diver Courtney Hattie was impressive, though she didn't win either board. She's just 17 years old. Texas was without Maren Taylor, though it wouldn't have changed standings much.

Where was Sarah Henry?????

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 10/19/2013 12:03a).]

"Aggies look weak in backstroke. Texas was 1-2 in both backstroke races."

I would be careful how you interpret that data. Paige Miller has been 51.5 and Kelli Benjamin 52.8 in the 100 back, and both McClure and Brandt have been 1:54 in the 200 Back. I'll take 54.9 in October if it means Miller is 51.0 in March, and judging by how she has progressed each year in the program that's a pretty good bet.

Also, last year Moldenhauer went 53.04 at a February dual meet and then proceeded to go 52.6 at Big 12's and 53.6 at NCAA's. She also threw in a 1:59 200 back which was second to last of those who actually swam the event in Indianapolis. And this was after (surprise, surprise) she went 1:58 in December.

What about Caroline McElhany ?????

Halco, I did say "look" weak. Moldenhauer was injured for much of last season. I wonder if she is just motivated for her senior year?

Capitani is not dumb enough (like Brackin before her) to rest any swimmers for a dual meet this early.

Any idea why Henry hasn't raced yet this year?

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 10/19/2013 9:17a).]

Spice - I just disagree with the term "weak". The Aggies look just about exactly like they always do at this point in the season. Very solid, with spectacular to come later. If that's what you meant then I can agree on that front.

As for Moldenhauer's motivation, I can't speak to that. All I can do is look at the numbers, and when your lifetime bests are 52.2/1:57.2 and you swim 53.4/1:58.0 unsuited in October, it makes me ponder what took place leading up to the meet. I hope you're right and for her sake it IS just a monster breakout senior season, but I'll need to see it in February/March to believe it.

Anyway, Texas is done. Time to move on to Missouri in 2 weeks, and then some more FUN at the Art Adamson Invitational back in the Rec Center Natatorium starting Nov 21.

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The Aggies look just about exactly like they always do at this point in the season.

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This.
A few points behind after that point though :
1) Sprint freestyle is better, but is it good enough to climb the NCAA points ladder?
2) The diving is decent but a bigger drop in points than expected.
3) Also have to ask where Caroline and Sarah are? Without them, the team's NCAA positioning takes a big hit.

Have to agree with the 50 times not quite lining up with the longer events compared to previous years, but for all we know they could just be in a particular phase or cycle that promotes that type of swimming. (A more aerobic phase with focused sprints practicing 1st half splits might do that)

Diving is better than I expected, mostly because Hattie is very good. Jessie is a platform diver. She dives springboard because they need her to. Connolly did not dive - and was not seen on the deck (by people that know her). I wonder if she is still recovering from her injury last year.

I thought I read somewhere (Swimswam?) that McElhaney was taking the year off, even though she is listed on the roster. But I have no specific information.

Our 50s look like we could have four girls easily go sub-23 at the end of the season. If our training to date supported fast 50s it must not include backstroke because our 50 back split was slow.

We know Breeja is on track.

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spice I agree that our women win. I just don't agree that we need to have anything to do with the scoundrels from their athletic dept. plenty of other great teams to swim against.

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We're not taking their athletic teams out to a steak dinner with fine wine. We're just going out and trying to beat them up in the pool or the on the field or whatever.

I think that both sides hate each other makes it all the more of a no brainer to play them.

"Texas had great swims from Lily Moldenhaeur and Pawlowicz - who beat Camille in the 1000 free. Camille just blew the race, misjudging how much Pawlowicz wanted the race."

Spice, what are you talking about in this statement. How many times have you been in the pool swimming a 1000 yard race under 10 minutes. When you call someone out about blowing the race, make sure it's not someone who made the finals at the Olympics and has NCAA titles. You are such a clown.

This was an amazing meet to watch, probably one of the top five I've ever seen. Texas has a great program and will continue to get better. It was great for us to be able to get that win with a few of our studs out. Henry and McElhany were on deck. My educated guess would be they're probably just a little banged up. If that's truly the case, there's no point in putting them out there and endangering the important part of the season, even if it means dropping a dual meet to Texas. Kudos to the team and Coach Bultman for a fantastic performance. The only shame is that, though it was a great crowd, it wasn't more packed.

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"Texas had great swims from Lily Moldenhaeur and Pawlowicz - who beat Camille in the 1000 free. Camille just blew the race, misjudging how much Pawlowicz wanted the race."

Spice, what are you talking about in this statement. How many times have you been in the pool swimming a 1000 yard race under 10 minutes. When you call someone out about blowing the race, make sure it's not someone who made the finals at the Olympics and has NCAA titles. You are such a clown.

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I've never ran a sub 10.00 100 meter dash, but I feel pretty good in saying I've seen Usain Bolt blow a race or two.

Even the greats can make mistakes every now and then.

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Spice, what are you talking about in this statement. How many times have you been in the pool swimming a 1000 yard race under 10 minutes. When you call someone out about blowing the race, make sure it's not someone who made the finals at the Olympics and has NCAA titles. You are such a clown.

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I'm sorry but Cammille blew the race. I think she is awesome. But I wrote what I saw. I was there to see it. Cammille was swimming a perfectly controlled 1000 and going only as fast as she needed (she had 200 fly and the 500 free coming up). It was a perfectly sensible way to race it. She and Pawlowicz raced the last 100 and Pawlowicz beat her by 0.03 secs after racing for 10 minutes. Do you not think that Adams could have beaten her?

In a dual meet with 9-4-3-2-1 scoring the difference between 1st and 2nd is huge. The good news is that ultimately it didn't matter. We won.

Adams is an amazing swimmer. Just like most of the Aggie girls.


[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 10/21/2013 6:32p).]

Caroline was sick and Sarah is injured.

In fairness to Cammile, Pawlowicz is a better long distance freestyler than anything else (1000 & 1650 in particular) while Cammile has at least three other events where she's better served than the 1000. You have to remember that Pawlowicz nearly scored in the 1650 at NCAA's last year as well.

Give Cammile a little credit for stepping up and swimming likely the three hardest events on the schedule and winning two of them. Without her in the meet, we get crushed.

Be a happy Aggie and be glad we won this meet. Despite all our wild successes over the past 8-9 seasons, this was only our third dual meet win over them during that period. That says a lot, ESPECIALLY with two big guns out.