By David Rieder
MAUI, Hawaii, August 27. COLLEGE coaches have been licking their chops. The class of women about to graduate high school features superstar talent that will make an immediate impact for a lot of different teams in their freshman campaigns. Katie Ledecky, already committed to Stanford, has become the best-known of her classmates as none of the others have set five world records in the past two months. Still, Kathleen Baker, Katie McLaughlin, and Abbey Weitzeil all joined Ledecky as rising seniors on the Pan Pacs team last week.
Another squad filled with less-aged talent will compete this week in Hawaii at the Junior Pan Pacs. In a press release, USA Swimming promoted the likes of Sierra Schmidt, Madison Homovich, and Amy Bilquist – another member of the class of 2015 – as the key women to watch, but the release didn’t mention the rising senior who just one year ago looked primed to make the jump to the senior level. As impressive were the performances of McLaughlin, Weitzeil, and others at last year’s Junior Nationals, Ella Eastin stole the show.
Eastin swept the IM events in Irvine, putting up a 2:13.66 in the 200 IM, a time which would have made the final in the event at the previous month’s World Championship trials, and she clocked a 4:38.97 in the 400 distance. Among Americans, only World Championships finalists Elizabeth Beisel and Maya DiRado swam faster in 2013, and Eastin ended the year ranked 13th in the world. She added a gold medal in the 400 IM at the Junior World Championships, took second behind 100 breast Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte in the 200 IM, and she swept the IM events again at Short Course Junior Nationals in December.
However, swimming this summer at Nationals did not bring the same success for Eastin. She swam in the B-finals of the 200 fly and 200 IM but the 400 IM brought huge disappointment. She had entered that event as the fourth seed, but a disastrous 4:51.26 prelim swim left her 24th and relegated to the 18-and-under bonus final. She rebounded slightly there to finish second in 4:48.34, but the swim disappointed as her best time would have placed her second in the final and on the senior Pan Pacs team. Her 200 IM wasn’t much better, as she posted a 2:15.39 for 12th overall.
This week, Eastin will be among the favorites to shine in Hawaii. She enters as the top seed in the 400 IM and second in the 200 IM behind Japan’s Hiroko Makino. Eastin admitted earlier this summer in a Morning Swim Show interview that she has been battling a shoulder injury for much of the season, but few expected her performances to be so far off in Irvine. This week’s meet should be a good test to see if she can once again approach her record-breaking form. CollegeSwimming.com ranks Eastin as the top recruit in the upcoming class, ahead of anyone who did make the Pan Pacs team; look for a better indication of that this week.