Hawkeye swimming sets field for NCAAs
Iowa swimming has a number of capable athletes ready to take the pool at NCAAs.
Iowa’s Joe Myhre (JR) prepares to swim 50 freestyle during the second day of the 2019 Big Ten Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the CRWC on Thursday, February 28, 2019.
March 6, 2019
The Iowa men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams have several swimmers who have swum to NCAA “B” qualifying standards.
On the men’s side, they swam all of their NCAA qualifying times in the 2019 Big Ten Championships. What sticks out beside this is the freestyle dominance. The Hawkeye men have at least one swimmer in all individual events but the 200 individual medley and the 100 fly.
Iowa has the most qualifiers in the freestyle sprints. In the 50 free, 168 men total swam to qualifying times including the Hawkeyes’ junior Joe Myhre (19.65, No. T-75), junior Will Scott (19.73, No. T-96), redshirt freshman Aleksey Tarasenko (19.83, No. 128), senior Jack Smith (19.86, No. T-133), and junior Stephen Fiolic (19.89, No. T-143).
These Hawkeyes, outside of Fiolic, also earned spots in the “B” 100 free with Smith (42.80, No. 43) leading the pack, Tarasenko (42.93, No. T-54) close behind, and Myhre (43.39, T-94) and Scott (43-40, T-96) neck-and-neck.
The 200 free is a different story — Tarasenko (1:35.07, No. T-71) was the only one to qualify for the Hawkeyes. There was only one who qualified for the 1,650 free as well — freshman Andrew Fierke (15:10.24, No. 63). Fierke (4:21.62, No. 114) also qualified for Iowa in the 500 free, where two other swimmers, junior Michael Tenney (4:21.20, No. 100) and freshman Mateusz Arndt (4.21.31, No. 104), are just ahead of him.
Tenney is the lone Hawkeye qualifier in a men’s fly event with a “B” time of 1:44.72 in the 200. Tenney (3:50.10, No. 108) also qualified for a third event just right behind freshman Anze Fers Erzen (3:50.09, No. 107) in the 400 individual medley.
Sophomore Daniel Swanepoel sits among the top 50 in both the 100 breast (53.06, No. 50) and the 200 breast (1:55.51, No. 46) in qualifying standard times. Senior Tanner Nelson (1:58.06, No. 109) is in the 200 breast.
For the Hawkeye men, both redshirt senior Kenneth Mende (1:42.15, No. 45) and Fers Erzen (1:44.05, No. 96) swam into the “B” 200 back. Mende also made the 100 back (46.82, No. 57).
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On the women’s side, there are three swimmers to watch.
Hannah Burvill, who has met qualifying standards in five events, sits at the top of that list. Her main event is freestyle, and it shows in the events she qualified for, but she has competed in many different events in her career.
In 2018 at the Hawkeye Invitational, she swam qualifying times in both the 50 (22.55, No. T-94) and 500 free (4:44.24, No. 81). Burvill also made the 100 free (48.97, No. 82).
Burvill also swam to another “B” time in the Big Ten Championships in the 200 free (1:45.04, No. 42), and Allyssa Fluit also made a “B” standard (1:46.67, No. 107).
Kelsey Drake has been dominant in the butterfly all year as she qualified for the 100 fly (53.12, No. T-86) at the Hawkeye Invitational and for the 200 fly (1:58.60, No. T-102) at the Big Ten Championships.
Before the swimming NCAAs, the Iowa diving team will compete at NCAA Zone D Diving Championship March 11-13 in Austin, Texas.
