By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
High school junior Henry Schutte has joined a small wave of class of 2019 commits that have made their verbal commitments in the last week. He has verbally committed to swim for Todd DeSorbo and the new coaching staff at the University of Virginia, beginning in the fall of 2019.
Schutte swims for the Rapids Area Y Swimmers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and had a big breakout swim at the USA Swimming Winter Junior Championships – East two weeks ago. While he didn’t finish in any A finals individually, he won the B final in the 50 free in a new best time of 20.12, swam a best time in the 100 free (44.61), and most excitingly split 19.37 on the anchor leg of his team’s 200 medley relay. While that relay finished just 39th, Schutte’s anchor leg was the fastest split of the field.
Schutte only swam 3 individual events at Winter Juniors (50 free, 100 free, 100 back), emphasizing his specialty as a sprint freestyler. As we all recalibrate with perspective on times for earlier commits, Schutte still has time to develop a 3rd event before he arrives in Charlottesville.
Even if that doesn’t happen, he will still provide immense value for the Cavaliers. Virginia’s fastest 50 freestyler this year, sophomore Ryan Baker, swam a 20.03 at the Georgia Fall Invitational. Baker is about a second better than Schutte in the 100 free this season (43.60), but Schutte’s times are already within range of what would contend for relay spots there as well at Virginia.
With this commitment, DeSorbo, who came to Virginia from NC State, is already beginning to remake the Virginia program from the ground-floor: sprints and relays. That’s the same place where NC State started when they built their program from national anonymity to a consistent top-5 finisher at the NCAA Championships. More specifically, DeSorbo was in charge of the NC State sprint group.
Schutte attends Forest Hills Central High School, where last season he was the Michigan Division I champion in both the 50 and 100 yard freestyles.
Schutte’s best times, yards (flat starts):
- 50 free – 20.12
- 100 free – 44.61
- 200 free – 1:41.99
- 500 free – 4:44.50
- 100 back – 52.37
- 100 fly – 53.57
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to Recruits@swimswam.com.
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