It was a relatively quiet week in terms of pro swimming this past week, however with the college season drawing to a close there were a lot of fireworks in the last duel meets for the top division one teams. Just as an aside a duel meet is just a meet were (typically) two teams swim against each other with the top few places being scored and then the final added up, it is kind of the equivalent of a regular-season game in football or basketball.
In the last few weeks of the year before conference and national championships, swimmers will typically rest a lot, and when resting you don’t really want to have to travel and then compete against another team, so this week is probably one of the last weeks that any top team will be racing before conference.
Texas: the number one team in the country and the team that has won 3 of the last 4 national championships swam two duel meets in the last week, they traveled to Tempe Arizona on the 31st of January and then down to Tuscon Arizona on the first to swim against Arizona State and Arizona respectively. They won both matchups and looked really good against Arizona State, although the next day they seemed to be lacking in speed, presumably because of the day of travel, and the meet they had the day before.
Cal (the number two team, and defending champs) swam USC this weekend and won. Michigan (number three) swam Michigan State and wiped the floor with them. Most of the other top teams either swam really bad teams and crushed them or were off this weekend.
Maybe the biggest meet, although not the fastest, was the HYP Classic. HYP is a tri-meet (like a duel but with three teams) between Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. They are the three top teams in the ivy league conference, and winning the HYP is a huge momentum boost heading into the ivy league championships in a few week’s time. This year Harvard got first Princeton got second and Yale got third; however, the meet was only separated by 12 points so it was very close. Although Harvard won, the top swims of the meet certainly belonged to the Yale relays and Ranak Khosla. Khosla won everything he swam and dominated the meet, posting times that would stand up at any conference in America.
In more local swimming news, Penn State Crushed Villanova this Friday. The most notable swim was Gabe Castano who went the fourth-fastest time in the Big Ten this year and broke the Penn State pool record in the 50 freestyle.