2020-21 Season Preview
8/12/2020 11:43:00 AM | Swimming and Diving
FORT WORTH — The 2019-20 season saw TCU's women's swimming and diving team post its highest conference finish since 2012-13. This year, the men will look to do the same, setting their sights on second place in the Big 12 Conference for the first time since 2015.
Leapfrogging West Virginia will be no easy task. Two-time Big 12 silver medalist Janis Silins headlines TCU's underclassmen, who must continue to progress in order to overtake the No. 2 spot. Silins was TCU's top point scorer, collecting 47 individual points at last season's conference meet. TCU's male freshmen as a whole outscored both Texas and West Virginia's.
The Horned Frogs' male freshmen left a wide individual point gap between themselves and West Virginia (280-108) in large part due to the trio of Silins (47 points), Dusan Babic (40 points) and Piotr Sadlowski (39 points). Rasmus Pedersen and Charles Millette both accounted for 34 points each as well. WVU also drops 46 of its points with Hunter Armstrong deciding to transfer to Ohio State.
Of TCU's 470 returning individual points on the men's side, 383 (81.5 percent) were recorded by underclassmen. The Horned Frogs graduated just two senior scorers and return a conference-high 90 percent of their individual points.
Eight of TCU's nine NCAA B cuts reappear in the forms of Babic (500 free), Kade Knoch (200 back), Hugh McPherson (100, 200 breast), Sadlowski (100, 200 fly) and Silins (100, 200 breast).
TCU's women outscored Iowa State's by 75 points and West Virginia's by 86 points en route to their third-place finish which consisted of three school records being broken between the 200 medley, 200 and 400 free relays.
The Horned Frogs graduated just three individual scorers at the conference meet and return a junior class that outscored its counterparts from every other Big 12 program last season, including Texas. TCU juniors scored 161 points, five more than Big 12 champion Texas (156).
Kiki Rice led the lady Frogs with 38 points at this past season's conference meet. The team captain qualified for the A final in the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 back. Fellow rising senior Sally Clough contributed 36 points as well.
On the boards, TCU had three international Frogs qualify for NCAA Zones.
School record-holder Izzy Ashdown returns after breaking both the 1- and 3-meter record in a dual meet against UIW in 2019. On 1-meter, Ashdown's 323.625 bested Kirsten Connolly's 2016 record of 321.30. In 3-meter, the Sydney, Australia, native's 362.175 edged Kelly Seely's 360.15 that had stood since 2006.
Ashdown registered six NCAA zone cuts on 3-meter and four zone cuts on 1-meter during the 2019-20 season. She nearly punched her ticket to the national championship meet, falling three spots off from the cut.
Another NCAA Diving Zone qualifier Frog returns from across the pond in Connie Deighton. Two seasons ago, Deighton became the first Horned Frog to reach the final round at the NCAA Zone meet since 2009. She made her second consecutive finals appearance on platform last season.
Faith Harms-Zacharias completes the diving trio after amassing three zone cuts on 1-meter and one on 3-meter as a freshman.
All three are expected to have an impact at the conference meet in their pursuit of NCAA qualification through NCAA Zone D. The last Horned Frog to compete at the NCAA Diving Championships came in 2007 with R.J. Hesselberg. The last female diver to participate was Sarah Crawford back in 1996.
The 2020-21 recruiting class looks to have an immediate effect, with Texas A&M transfer Audrey McMurry aiming for multiple TCU records.
Last season, the Horned Frogs set 18 new school records, half of which were relay records. All four individual short course records were broken by freshmen.
Players Mentioned
