How Low Can Virginia Go in the 400 Free Relay?

2023 NCAA WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Virginia women are stacked in the four shorter relays at the NCAA Championships, and in the meet-closing 400 free relay, the story is the same. Their 3:06.83 in the fastest swim ever, and is two full seconds ahead of second-seeded Stanford.

While I don’t expect anybody to challenge Virginia for that title, if the meet is still in contention at the day’s conclusion (a possibility given the 50+ points Texas might score in the 200 fly one event earlier), that could impact Virginia’s aggressiveness on their relay exchanges.

So we’ll break the race down on the assumption that Virginia is not going ‘safe starts,’ but keep in mind the context that they might.

Virginia’s Record Chase

The Virginia women are chasing a 2nd-consecutive title in the 400 free relay, which would make them the first team to repeat in this event since Stanford in 2014 and 2015 (one without Simone Manuel and one with).

They swam 3:06.83 at ACCs, which shaved .08 seconds off their record from NCAAs last year. Lest we think they’ve used up their best swim there, remember that, even at the end of a long meet, Virginia dropped 1.3 seconds off their ACC Championship time in this event at last year’s NCAA Championship meet.

Gretchen Walsh was 46.0 at NCAAs last year. Kate Douglass was 45.86 in the 100 free individually at ACCs this year, though her relay split was half-a-second slower. Alex Walsh doesn’t swim a lot of flat-start 100 frees, but did split 46.49 on this relay last year.

The only leg of this relay who really felt maxed-out at ACCs was Lexi Cuomo, who split seven-tenths better than her 100 free personal best from earlier in the meet and was generally firing on all cylinders. And if the coaches find that through three days, she doesn’t seem to be repeating that same fire, they could look to Aimee Canny as well.

So even if Cuomo is even with her ACC swim, that would give Virginia another 1.5 seconds off their ACC Championship time, on paper.

Splits of the top teams:

Reason to Pause on Stanford?

But it doesn’t look like Stanford was necessarily maxed-out at Pac-12s either. Taylor Ruck has been 46.7 on a flat-start (albeit in 2019), Torri Huske has been 46.82 on a flat-start (leading off this relay at NCAAs last year), and Claire Curzan has been 47.23 on a flat-start (at a post-COVID intrasquad meet).

Given Huske and Curzan’s international accomplishments in the 100 free, it’s not hard to imagine that they could undercut their splits at Pac-12s. Kayla Wilson is the peer of Cuomo – her relay split at Pac-12s was a monster relativel to the personal best of 48.21 she swam at the same meet.

So if we say that Stanford has another 1.5 seconds, like Virginia, that closes the gap and evaporates Virginia’s margin of error. Stanford usually does slightly better in this relay at NCAAs than mid-season, so a second-and-a-half would be a huge leap for them, but the splits make that seem plausible.

Even so, based on history, Virginia doesn’t add even half-a-second on relays at NCAAs. Unless we get into a “safe starts” scenario for the Cavaliers, the gulf seems too big, but not impassible.

Other Podium Contenders

Louisville almost-always improves on seed at the NCAA Championships, but in this relay, everyone was about where you’d expect them to be based on personal bests, so while their seed isn’t far behind Stanford, it would take something pretty special for them to catch the Cardinal.

That leaves them in a battle with NC State and Ohio State for 3rd place. NC State’s relay is stacked, and the slowest leg from ACCs, Abbey Webb, is kind of a red herring. She split 48.31 on the 400 free relay, but 48.05 in the individual 100 free. So, like Virginia’s Douglass, she should be able to improve that split at ACCs.

With the depth of Louisville, it will probably take four 47-or-better splits for anybody who wants to knock them off 3rd. NC State has that, and it might come down to whether they capture the marginal drops possible from their other three legs. They usually improve from seed in relays at NCAAs, and last year Louisville dropped about two-tenths while NC State dropped about three.

That is the opposite pattern of Ohio State, which has added in this relay at each of the last two NCAA Championships (in spite of the fact that in 2021, they overall improved a ton from seed, and last year, dropped from seed).

I think the totality of that evidence would place NC State 3rd, Louisville 4th, and Ohio State 5th-or-6th as the most defensible order.

Other Top Seeds

The LSU women, with Maggie MacNeil, are the 6 seed – and the SEC Champions. Aside from MacNeil, it feels like the Tigers probably maxed out to get that conference title, so it’s hard to expect much more drop there. The Florida women are swimming well as a team and return all four swimmers from their 7th-place relay at last year’s NCAA Championships, so they’re due for a move-up as the 7th seed.

The real big question-mark then is Texas. Their splits at Big 12s:

The Longhorns were a pleasant surprise with three 47-second splits at Big 12s, showing off their depth. That includes one from Ava Longi, whose lifetime best coming into the year on a flat-start was 49.33.

Texas really needs one of two things to happen: they need Kelly Pash to be the hammer that the SwimSwam staff is all expecting her to be at NCAAs, or they need a fourth 47-second leg to show up.

If they get one, they’re into the top 8. If they get both, they could sneak as high as the top 5.

Other Teams to Watch Out For

Like LSU, Hawaii has exploded this year thanks to the incoming transfer of an All-American sprinter, Leticia-Leigh Transom from USC. On paper, I’d say the same thing as I did about LSU, that I expect they’ll have trouble replicating their Last Chance Meet time at NCAAs. Then again, that Last Chance Meet result was itself a huge breakout from their conference meet just a few weeks earlier.

Unlike LSU, this is Hawaii’s only relay, which means they’ll have rested swimmers and some pent-up emotion – only Transom is swimming individually from that group.

Indiana has a sneaky-good relay thanks to Kristina Paegle‘s breakout at Big Tens. Arkansas has flown under the radar but has parlayed their Anna Hopkins results from a few years back into some sustained relay success.

But my favorite sleeper pick to look out for are the Cal women. They were whacked by the transfer portal after last season (some that happened, some that didn’t). They were just 11th at NCAAs last year, and have managed to earn a 14th seed in spite of those challenges.

The two returning legs, Emma Davidson (47.71 rolling split at Pac-12s vs. 48.92 leadoff last year at NCAAs) and Isabelle Stadden (48.06 split at Pac-12s vs. 48.50 at NCAAs last year) have thrived under the coaching change.

Eloise Riley, the anchor at Pac-12s, split only 49.07 – but flat-started a personal best of 48.40 two years ago. Ayla Spitz split 49.07 on the leadoff leg at Pac-12s, but has a best of 48.63 from 2019 when she was still in high school.

If Cal can get those last two cylinders to fire at NCAAs and bring this relay together for a 4:11-low or 4:10-high, then that would be the cherry on a successful righting-of-the-ship by coaches Dave Durden and Dave Marsh.

SwimSwam’s 2023 NCAA Championship Predictions