NCAA Women’s Swimming: 5 Veterans Who Can Elevate Their Squads in 2024-25

NCAA Girls’s Swimming: 5 Veterans Who Can Elevate Their Squads in 2024-25

As the following faculty swimming season begins, these with even a rudimentary information of the game perceive that the Virginia girls are set to dominate the nation for a fifth consecutive 12 months, with Gretchen Walsh getting back from the Olympics to a format she completely dominated final 12 months whereas older sister Alex Walsh swims her fifth 12 months after profitable three particular person titles in 2024 and switch Claire Curzan provides a 3rd key member to the squad. However who will push for the highest crew finishes behind the Cavaliers?

We definitely count on Torri Huske to convey Stanford again into the dialog following her redshirt 12 months whereas Bella Sims offered the spark in Florida’s third-place nationwide end final season. Listed here are a few of the different key swimmers we count on to play large roles of their respective crew’s success over the following six months.

Phoebe Bacon, Wisconsin

At two consecutive Olympic Trials, Bacon has used stellar closing splits to get herself onto the Olympic crew because the runnerup within the 200 backstroke. Nonetheless, Bacon has completed heartbreakingly in need of the rostrum within the occasion at back-to-back Video games. She touched lower than a quarter-second away from bronze in Tokyo earlier than ending up 4 hundredths behind Canada’s Kylie Masse this time round.

Bacon now returns for her fifth season of school swimming after profitable two nationwide titles within the 200-yard again and ending as runnerup on two events, though the race appears to be fairly aggressive this 12 months with Curzan, Sims and Cal’s Isabelle Stadden all anticipated to be within the working. Bacon additionally positioned fourth within the 100 again and fifth within the 200 IM finally 12 months’s nationwide championships. Wisconsin has not completed greater than fifteenth nationally throughout Bacon’s profession, however maybe that modifications this 12 months as Wisconsin’s total core, led by Bacon and freestylers Abby Carlson and Paige McKenna, is joined by proficient freshman Maggie Wanezek.

Mona McSharry, Tennessee

Following a powerful fourth-place end for the Volunteers final 12 months, the crew’s greatest swimmer returns to Knoxville after claiming Olympic bronze within the 100-meter breaststroke, with McSharry’s time of 1:05.59 placing her one hundredth up on co-fourth-place finishers Lilly King and Benedetta Pilato. McSharry was the runnerup in each breaststroke distances finally 12 months’s NCAA Championships, and she is going to once more crew with Sweden-native Emilie Quick to supply the nation’s greatest 1-2 punch within the stroke.

Additionally finally 12 months’s NCAA Championships, McSharry paced 4 Tennessee relays that completed sixth place or higher. It’s no shock that she dealt with breaststroke on each medley relays, however she additionally contributed stable freestyle splits on the 200 and 400 free relays.

Anna Peplowski, Indiana

Peplowski scored her greatest NCAA efficiency thus far final season when she almost ran down Sims for the title within the 200 free whereas ending third within the 500 free and seventh within the 100 free and enjoying a central relay position for the seventh-place Hoosiers. However her large breakthrough second got here a couple of months later, when Peplowski positioned fifth within the 200 free on the U.S. Olympic Trials to qualify for her first Olympic crew. Peplowski earned a silver medal for her relay efforts in Paris, and now, Indiana will rely upon this returning Olympian together with sprinter Kristina Paegle to attempt to nail down one other top-10 end.

Emma Sticklen, Texas

Photograph Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

The Longhorns, third on the nationwide stage every of the final three years, have misplaced some key items this season. Kelly Pash, the do-everything ace for Carol Capitani’s group the final 5 seasons, has exhausted her eligibility. Olympic breaststrokers Anna Elendt and Lydia Jacoby are each gone. Texas did place one swimmer on the U.S. Olympic crew, with Erin Gemmell qualifying for the 200 free semifinals in Paris and racing on the U.S. girls’s 800 free relay, however Gemmell’s quick course swimming will not be on par along with her lengthy course outcomes.

The very best swimmer on this crew is Sticklen, the two-time defending nationwide champion within the 200-yard fly. Sticklen has gained each titles in come-from-behind trend, overtaking Alex Walsh in 2023 after which transferring up from fourth to first with an impressive remaining underwater kickout in final season’s remaining. Sticklen was additionally the nationwide runnerup within the 100 fly final 12 months, and he or she was a B-finalist within the 200 IM. She can also be a plug-and-play relay swimmer, anticipated to hold a heavy load alongside fellow fifth-years Olivia Bray and Abby Arens, the latter a switch from NC State.

Emma Weyant, Florida

This two-time Olympic medalist has quietly put collectively a powerful faculty profession with the Gators after spending her freshman season at Virginia. Whereas Sims was the central pressure in Florida’s third-place end final season, Weyant performed a key position in serving to Florida to an upset win within the 800 free relay, after which she completed second behind Sims for an enormous Gators efficiency within the 500 free. She broke 4:00 whereas inserting second within the 400 IM, and he or she got here via with a powerful fifth-place end within the 1650 free.

Weyant now returns for her senior season after as soon as once more reaching the Olympic podium at this summer season’s Paris Video games, claiming bronze within the 400-meter IM. Whereas she lacks a few of the dash versatility so prized in faculty swimming, her outcomes might be essential if Florida hopes to win one other top-four crew trophy this 12 months.