[Breeze]

SAA Conference Championship - RESULTS

Day 4

200 Back - Billy ended up swimming a fantastic prelim in this event, qualifying 3rd for the finals. Unfortunately, just like 2022, he slipped on the start in finals and found himself way behind the field early. He was able to make up ground on most of the field by the end of the first 50 (mostly due to extremely strong turns). However, the top 3 were all at least a second ahead, and Billy was unable to real them in. He did manage to finish 4th - and with the slip start, that's a heck of an effort. Nate had another good effort, like the 100 back he made the B final and he finished 12th overall.

200 Breast - This was an extremely odd event. This is the first time in Bear's 3 years at conference where an event was so poorly fielded, even including the Covid year when Sewanee didn't even show up. In this event, there were only 12 competitors - TOTAL. The spring Free and Fly races are super deep and overrun with talent, where the breast and back fields are pretty pedestrian, and the 200 fly was also underrepresented. Ryan was the top performer for Berry, coming in 4th again. (Ryan has been so close to medaling the last couple of years, I hope he get's one next year). Mac continued his strong freshman season with a 6th place finish, and Andrew finished 11th to round out the scoring for Berry.

200 Fly - This was the event that I hoped Bear would slid into this season. I was hoping he might be able to just swim the 100s until a few weeks before taper, then ramp up the distance so he could race this event. I really felt with him training fly sprint, that if he could get the endurance up a bit to race this one, he could medal. Berry only had 1 swimmer in this event - Billy, who elected to double up, swimming the 200 back and 200 fly on the same day. He made A finals in the event, and he ended up 8th overall. He really struggled down the stretch, and that could easily be attributed to his workload. The last swim in the last day - his 4th 200 yard swim, seemed to take its toll. If you're wondering, Bear's personal best would have put him in a group of 3 swimmers battling for 3rd.


Bear

100 Free (Seed - 49.44 : PB - 49:29) - Bear came into this event seeded 19th. In the previews, I noted that Bear was likely going to need to get a personal best to make it back to finals and that I was hoping he'd get down in the 48 second range. After seeing the field and entry times for swimmers, it looked like getting into the 48 second range was more a requirement to return. As it turns out Bear did get a personal best - but he also didn't brake the 49 second barrier - 49:05. Unfortunately, my fears were realized as his time placed him 17th in qualifying. The 16th place swimmer was his buddy Alex who went a 48.81 and was able to slip into finals. Alex ended up 17th in the 100 fly and missed finals, so missing here as well would have been heartbreaking. I just wish they had both been able to get in the top 16.

In finals, Noah was able to win the event posting a blistering 45.02 time. Harrison finished 7th with a 46.97. Paxton had another nice swim with a 48.36, good enough for 14th, and Alex jumped 1 spot to 15th with a 48.41.

400 Free Relay - With Sam absent from the relay due to the concussion there were 2 spots that needed to filled on the A team. 1 was Sam's spot the other was the difficult to determine 4th swimmer. As it turns out the team went with Ross, Paxton, Harrison, and Noah. Unfortunately, Ross opened with a 48.47 and Berry found itself in 5th place and only a fraction of a second ahead of 6th. As I mentioned before the depth for Milsap, Hendrix and Sewanee wasn't sufficient to compete in the relays, so there was no way they were going to stay in front of Berry for 4 legs. However, Berry was also unable to make up the gap on the top 3, setting for 4th overall.

In the B relay it was Bear, Ethan, Alex, and Ryan. Bear lead off and posted another personal best time of 48.74. This time would have been good enough to return in the 100 free if he had swum it in prelims. It's pretty cool that the very last swim Bear will ever do - ends up being a personal best. In fact, in his last 4 individual swims ever, 3 were personal bests. Ethan went second and he split 47.98. Next up was Alex, and he was unbelievable! Bear was 3rd at the end of his split, trailing Rhodes by 1 second and Charlie Fountain of BSC by 1.7 seconds. At the end of Ethan's 47.98 split, Berry was still in 3rd, Rhodes was up by .7, and BSC was in first about 1.5 seconds ahead. Alex split a 47.10!!! - Even with the maximum benefit of the .7 on a rolling start, that's still at worst a 47.8 swim. This moved Berry into second place only half a second behind Rhodes. BSC front loaded their relay and they fell way off the pace with their 3rd and 4th legs, and Centre put there 2 best in the back of their relay, but they were unable to reel in Berry for 2nd place. Ryan had no shot to reel in the Rhodes anchor, who posted a sub 47 second split, but he did enough to secure 2nd in the B final with a 48.26.