UrsusArctosCalifornicus;842432306 said:
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[ATTACH=CONFIG]4142[/ATTACH] Swimswam - [COLOR="#696969"]2 Jan 2015[/COLOR]
The Florida women are now NCAA title contenders...but they may even be the favorites with their newest additions: http://swimswam.com/florida-newcomers-sophia-batchelor-amelia-maughan-eligible-compete-semester/
[COLOR="#FF0000"][SIZE=5]Florida Newcomers [U]Sophia Batchelor[/U], Amelia Maughan Eligible to Compete This Semester[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=1]Cal transfer Sophia Batchelor is eligible to swim for Florida in the spring semester of 2015. Archive Photo via Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com[/SIZE]
While Florida head coach Gregg Troy is declining to comment on whether newcomers Sophia Batchelor and Amelia Maughan will compete this weekend against Florida State, the two are both eligible to compete in the spring semester of 2015, according to a team spokesperson.
Whether those first races come this weekend or later in the semester, their additions at any time between now and March make the Florida women legitimate NCAA title contenders (though, they won't impact our power rankings until they've swum their first races).
The two join Theresa Michalak, who says she is swimming this weekend, in huge mid-year pickups for the Gators: http://swimswam.com/european-champion-michalak-make-first-career-appearance-florida-gators-friday/
Batchelor is a New Zealand native who is transferring to Florida after one season spent with the Cal Golden Bears. In her freshman season at Cal, Batchelor finished 16th at NCAA's in the 100 fly individually, 21st in the 200 back, and 17th in the 200 fly, while also splitting a 51.62 in the 100 fly in prelims of the 400 medley relay. That split was the fastest of any butterflier among teams who made the A-Final, though Batchelor was still replaced by Rachel Bootsma in finals.
The Florida 200 and 400 medley relays graduated both breaststroker Hilda Luthersdottir and butterflier Elise Zalewski off of last year's team, where both finished in the top 4 at NCAA's. Adding possibly Michalak, and almost definitely Batchelor, to those relays along with Sinead Russell on the backstroke allows sophomore star Natalie Hinds to remain on the Gators' freestyle leg. That's a relay that can once again contend with the likes of Tennessee, Cal, Stanford, and Georgia for the NCAA relay titles, and might even become a favorite depending on how well the international swimmers adapt to yards swimming.
The other addition, Maughan, is not yet as well known internationally as Batchelor and Michalak, but she's heading that way and is still a huge addition. She was a member of Team England at this summer's Commonwealth Games that included spots on both the 400 free relay that took silver (prelims swimmer) and the 800 free relay that took bronze (finals swimmer).
In long course, Maughan has best times of (converted times in parenthesis):
50 free 25.68 (22.4)
100 free 55.36 (48.4)
200 free 1:59.35 (1:44.6)
Those are all immediate-impact times, and she might just be the piece that Florida needs to get on top of the podium in March.
Florida didn't have a very big class of incoming American freshman this season, indicating that coach Troy might have something up his sleeve. Including transfers and redshirt freshmen, 7 out of 11 new competitors for the Gators are internationals (7 out of 8 if we exclude divers in the tally).
While Troy has been mum about when the influx of talent might officially begin competing, Batchelor was at home in New Zealand over the Christmas holiday.
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Josh: [COLOR="#696969"]"We know that Michalak is now eligible, but if Sophia Batchelor and Amelia Maughan (both of whom show up on the UF roster now) are eligible for SECs, they just filled every need that was keeping them from contending at NCAAs. Michalak is the top-flight breaststroker the medley relays needed in addition to being a :55/1:59 lc freestyler and a :59 lc flyer. She is a three-event scorer who can swim anything. Sophia Batchelor is the sprint flyer they were looking for to relieve Natalie Hinds so she can swim monster freestyle anchor splits, and Amelia Maughan (split sub-55 and 1:59 mid on relays for Great Britain this summer) gives them a freestyle weapon that can swim from the 50 to the 200 and bolster the relays. These are gamechanging additions."[/COLOR]
Sparkle: [COLOR="#696969"]"I'm puzzled as to why Florida should be considered title contenders after these additions. Florida was 6th last year, almost 300 points behind Georgia. They have a long way to go to win a NCAA title.
The addition of Michalak, Batchelor and Maugan will help fill the holes in Florida's lineup, especially having a sprint butterflier who isn't Natalie Hinds and freeing up Lindsey McKnight from breaststroke duty. But there's always uncertainty in bringing foreign swimmers in and just taking a straight conversion from their LCM to SCY times. The most recent example of this is Marina Garcia at Cal, who did not end up being the breaststroker that they needed for their medleys last season. Michalak will likely do well at NCAA's this year, given that she's been at Florida for a year now and swam well at German Nationals last month. But Batchelor has been at Cal all fall, and it's unclear if she's been swimming. If she hasn't, she's probably better off redshirting for the rest of the season. It will be interesting to see how Maugan transitions to SCY.
If anything, Florida mitigated the loss of Beisel and Zalewski with these pickups, and now has a shot at finishing in the Top 5 at NCAA's, but they would still need to get by Texas A&M or Texas to get there. This year is Georgia's to lose, with Cal and Stanford having an outside shot at taking the title if they swim a near perfect meet and Georgia stumbles."
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Unable to link individual comments from SwimSwam articles, but there's another comment from "Josh" (a former Florida swimmer who lives/works in the Bay Area) which is especially telling about college swimming recruiting in Cal's and LSJU's wake. Everybody wanted Missy, Murphy, Seliskar, Abbey, and Baker, as well as LSJU's Nolan, Manuel, and Ledecky, but even powers like Georgia and Florida have little chance recruiting against the Bay Area duopoly. The combination of swimming and academic excellence, local post-college economic opportunities, international reputation, and weather crush the competition.
Means that other schools have to develop lesser talents or gamble more on internationals. Flip side for the Bears is that the "misses" are magnified since Teri and Durden have much easier access to elite recruits than almost everyone else.
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