PVS at 2016 Arena Pro Swim Series in Mesa
By Reach for the Wall Staff Writers.
Katie Ledecky led the group of PVS swimmers who swam at the fourth stop on the Arena Pro Swim Series, which took place on April 14-16 at the Skyline Aquatic Center in Mesa, Arizona.
True to form, Ledecky (NCAP / Stanford / Stone Ridge) won the 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle and 800m freestyle, and she continues to draw closer to the sprinters as she finished 6th in the 100m freestyle.
Cassidy Bayer (NCAP / West Potomac) came in 2nd in the 200m butterfly, 3rd in the 100m fly, and 11th in the 200m IM. Hellen Moffitt (U. of North Carolina / Machine / West Potomac) finished 5th in the 100m butterfly (two spots behind Bayer), 18th in 200m fly, and 23rd in 100m backstroke. Kaitlin Pawlowicz (NCAP / U. of Texas at Austin (graduated) / Oakton) got 8th in the 800m free (in the same finals as Ledecky), 13th in the 400m IM, and 16th in the 200m butterfly (just ahead of Moffitt).
Sarah Haase (RMSC / Stanford / Good Counsel) finished 6th in the 100m breaststroke and 14th in the 200m breastroke. Amanda Kendall (Mason Makos / Robinson) built on her strong 2016 PVS Senior Champs performance, finishing 14th in the 100 butterfly and 19th in 50m freestyle.
On the men’s side, Jack Conger (NCAP / U. of Texas at Austin / Good Counsel) got 2nd in the 100m fly, 4th in the 200m fly, and 6th in the 200m freestyle. Andrew Seliskar (NCAP / U. of California at Berkeley / Thomas Jefferson) finished 5th in the 200m IM, 8th in the 100m butterfly (swimming in the same finals as Conger), 9th in the 200m fly, and 16th in the 200m breaststroke.
Andrew Gemmell (NCAP / U. of Georgia (graduated)) came in 9th in the 1500m freestyle and 400m IM and 15th in the 400m freestyle. Matthew Hirschberger (NCAP) got 17th in the 1500m freestyle and 22nd in the 400m freestyle, and Christopher Fiala got 27th in the 50m freestyle.
With her strong performance in Mesa and with only three more stops left in the Arena Pro Swim Series, Ledecky extends her lead atop the 2015-16 leaderboard by 15 points over second place, Maya DiRado.
The eligible overall point total winner (male and female) of the Arena Pro Swim Series will win a one-year lease of a BMW vehicle plus a $10,000 bonus. But as Ledecky clarifies in the interview above, “it doesn’t really matter” that she heads the leaderboard since she’s not a professional swimmer (yet) and thus is currently ineligible to receive any winnings in the Series.