Credit to Rachel Perreault | Director, Athletics Communications – 12thman.com
IRVINE, Calif. — Ten Aggie swimmers were in action at the TYR Pro Championships last week, closing out the season with a number of person-bests and Olympic Trails cut times.
On the men’s side, current student-athletes Kraig Bray, Clayton Conklin, Trey Dickey, Garret Green, Vincent Ribeiro and Seth Reno made the trip California, along with Aggie pros Angel Martinez and Brett Pinfold. Dickey and Conklin highlighted the week for the Aggies as both notched a pair of U.S. Olympic Trials cuts with new personal-best times, while Dickey also advanced to the Championship Final in two of his three individual events. Dickey began the final day of the meet with an eighth-place and personal-best time of 15:36.38 in the 1500m free to add a third event for U.S. Trials. After lowering his top time and previous Trials cut in the 200m fly prelims, going 1:59.77, Dickey went on to close out the meet with a seventh-place finish in the final with a time of 1:59.94. Conklin punched his ticket to Indianapolis next summer with a pair of personal bests in the butterfly events. He took 10th in the 100m fly final with a time of 53.11 and clocked in at 1:59.87 in the 200m fly final, a time that ranked eighth overall in the evening session.
“This meet was a great experience for our guys to be able to finish the season in this environment,” Texas A&M men’s swimming & diving head coach Jay Holmes said after the meet. “We did get better as the meet went on and Saturday was our best day. Trey [Dickey] doubled doing both the 200 fly and 1500 free on Saturday. In the fly he went under 2:00 in both prelims and finals, and doing that while also getting the 1500 cut is really a great day of swimming. At the 1400 of the race I knew he would have to have a great last 100 to make the cut and he came back in 57.0 to make the cut and finish in the top-eight overall. Clayton [Conklin] came into this meet with no Trials cuts and finished the meet with two of them. He dropped nearly four seconds in his 200 fly Saturday, quite an impressive time drop at this level.”
Green and Reno also set new best times in their individual events as well as on relays. Green went 55.38 in the 100m fly prelims and later posted a time of 55.33 in a time trial. He also clocked a time of 58.86 in the 100m back as the leadoff on the 400m medley relay. Reno went 23.38 in the 50m free prelims and added another top time in the 100m free, going 50.51 as the leadoff on the 400m free relay. Bray posted times of 23.59 and 51.29 in the 50m free and 100m free prelims, respectively. Ribeiro advanced to the 200m IM final, finishing with a time of 2:02.97, while also adding times of 1:04.17 in the 100m breast and 2:16.82 200m breast prelims.
Martinez finished in the top 13 in both butterfly events, clocking in at 53.50 in the 100m fly and 2:00.86 in the 200m fly finals. Pinfold advanced to the evening session in all three of his individual events, highlighted by a fifth-place finish with a time of 49.08 in the 100m free. Already qualified for U.S. Olympic Trials in the 100m free, Pinfold added two more events to his list after going 2:20.65 in the 200m IM final and 1:49.25 in the 200m free final.
On the women’s side, Chloe Stepanek advanced to five finals, including A final appearances in the 200m free and 100m free. Stepanek has already notched U.S. Olympic Trials cuts in the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m free. Bobbi Kennett had an impressive week in California, adding a fourth event for Canadian Trials as she has now reached the cut time in the 50m free, 100m free, 100m breast and 200m IM. Kennett clocked a new personal best in the 200m IM final, going 2:17.67, and the 100m free final with a time of 56.93.