Georgia Sweeps Arizona State in Meet Featuring Relays and 150s
The season opener for the Georgia Bulldogs and Arizona State Sun Devils included some unique events, including 150-yard races of every stroke plus distance freestyle relays, mixed-stroke relays and individual medley relays, but most unusual for the Bulldogs was the absence of longtime head coach Jack Bauerle, who retired in June after 44 seasons leading the program. The Georgia women are now led by alum and longtime assistant coach Stefanie Williams Moreno, and Neil Versfeld is the men’s head coach.
The Georgia women won the meet comfortably over ASU by a score of 62-28, and the men earned a tight 46-44 triumph. Georgia’s men began their winning effort in the 1200-yard freestyle relay, where three swimmers raced 400 yards each. Jake Magahey, the 2021 NCAA champion in the 500 free and last year’s runnerup, started off the relay, and he was followed by Andrew Abruzzo and U.S. World Championships team member Luca Urlando. Georgia won in 10:21.08.
Later on, Urlando, Wesley Ng, Zach Hils and Magahey combined to win a 400 relay with two swimmers racing butterfly and two racing freestyle. Urlando led off in a 46.26 100 fly on the way to a final time of 3:01.36. Urlando later won the 150 fly in 1:14.94, and Ian Grum won the 150 backstroke in 1:13.81. Nolan Lewis won 1-meter diving (310.20).
Arizona State was led by 400 IM and 200 IM world champion Leon Marchand, who was part of three wins in the first meet of his second college season. The team of Jack Dolan, Owen McDonald, John Heaphy and Marchand won a 400-yard backstroke-breaststroke combo relay in 3:21.13, and then Marchand led off a mixed-distance IM relay. He swam 300 yards, 75 of each stroke, before David Schlict raced a 200 IM and Grant House finished off with a 100 IM. ASU’s final time was 5:18.52. Finally, Marchand won the 150 breast in 1:24.25.
The Sun Devils’ team of Dolan, Heaphy, Cody Bybee and House won the 200 medley relay in 1:27.18, and the group of Dolan, House, Jonny Kulow and Julian Hill ended the meet with a 200 free relay win (1:19.74).
The Georgia women began their winning effort as Marie Schobel, Elizabeth Isakson, Callie Dickinson and Eboni McCarty won the 200 medley relay in 1:40.15, and Abigail McCulloh, Jillian Barczyk and Sloane Reinstein followed with a win in the 1200 free relay in 11:26.52. Schobel, Millie Sansome, Zoie Hartman and Isakson won the back-breast combo relay in 3:50.11, and the team of Lily Gardner, Olivia DellaTorre, Reinstein and McCarty followed with a 3:31.20 first-place effort in the fly-free relay.
Mia Abruzzo, Hartman and Dickinson won the IM relay in 6:08.08, and then Jade Foelske won ASU’s only race of the day when she took the 150 fly (1:25.61). Georgia got back to its winning ways with Schobel in the 150 back (1:24.36) and Hartman in the 150 breast (1:36.44), and McCarty, Reinstein, Barczyk and Elsa Fretz concluded the day with a 1:32.70 win in the 200 free relay.
Full results are available here. This meet was the first of two days of racing between Georgia and Arizona State, with the Missouri Tigers set to join in a more traditional competition Saturday.
What fun!!! Nice to see just for fun events.