18 Mid-Major Swimmers Qualify For 2025 Men’s NCAA Championships

2025 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships

  • March 26-29, 2025
  • Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center, Federal Way, Washington
  • Short Course Yards (25 yards)
  • Psych Sheets

The official psych sheets for the 2025 Men’s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships are out. That means it’s time to take a look at which mid-major swimmers have qualified for the big dance in Federal Way, Washington. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “mid-major” refers to a Division I school that isn’t in a Power Four conference (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC).

This year, 18 male swimmers from 15 different programs qualified for the NCAA Championships in individual events.

Swimmer Team Events
Jack Kelly Brown 200 BR (3rd), 100 BR (4th), 200 IM (51st)
Remi Fabiani California Baptist 50 FR (15th), 100 FR (7th), 100 BK (31st)
Mark Kovacsics California Baptist 1650 FR (26th), 500 FR (46th)
Joshua Corn Columbia 200 BR (27th), 100 BR (38th)
Pietro Ubertalli Cornell 200 BK (10th), 100 BK (29th), 200 IM (47th)
Matvei Namakonov Delaware 100 BR (15th), 50 FR (54th), 100 FR (58th)
David Schmitt Harvard 200 FL (16th), 100 FL (40th), 100 BK (46th),
Felix Jedbratt La Salle 100 FL (24th), 50 FR (36th)
Mitchell Schott Princeton 200 FL (13th), 200 IM (13th), 400 IM (17th)
Alex Santiago SIU 100 FR (29th), 50 FR (33rd)
Johnny Crush U.S. Military Academy 100 BK (6th), 100 FR (46th), 50 FR (63rd),
Kohen Rankin U.S. Military Academy 100 BR (17th), 200 BR (37th)
Ben Irwin U.S. Naval Academy 200 BK (26th), 200 FL (40th), 100 BK (41st)
Karol Ostrowski University of Hawaii 50 FR (27th), 200 FR (49th), 100 FR (57th)
Daniel Nicusan UNLV 100 BR (29th), 200 BR (30th), 200 IM (50th)
Matt Fallon University of Pennsylvania 200 BR (1st), 100 BR (21st), 500 FR (55th)
Nicholas Finch Yale 100 FL (11th), 50 FR (31st), 100 FR (62nd)
Noah Millard Yale 500 FR (2nd), 1650 FR (6th), 200 FR (16th)

Cal Baptist, Army, and Yale lead all programs with two individual qualifiers each. Army, Yale, Princeton, and Harvard all qualified relays for NCAAs, which is a significant benchmark for any mid-major school to hit. This is the first time Princeton has qualified relays for NCAAs since 2016. Last year, Kohen Rankin was Army’s first NCAA qualifier since 1987. A year later, Army has Rankin and Johnny Crush as individual qualifiers, plus relays–a sharp improvement curve.

This year, Army isn’t the only Patriot League school to send swimmers as Navy sophomore Ben Irwin qualified for his debut NCAA Championships.

It’s a similar story for Cal Baptist. Remi Fabiani became the program’s first NCAA qualifier two years ago. This year, he returns to the meet in three events and will have a swimming teammate on deck in Mark Kovacsics.

The Ivy League has eight individual swimmers qualified for this year’s NCAA Championships from seven of its eight schools. Only Dartmouth isn’t represented as Brown’s Jack Kelly, Columbia’s Joshua CornCornell’s Pietro Ubertalli, Harvard’s David Schmitt, Princeton’s Mitchell Schott, Penn’s Matt Fallon, and Yale’s Nicholas Finch and Noah Millard all qualified.

Entrants By Event

Breaking these qualifiers down by events reveals where these mid-major programs are most successful in producing NCAA qualifiers. Like the women’s edition, the 50 free has the most number of entrants, with seven mid-major men signed up to race the event in Federal Way. However, if we charted only the events where swimmers had been above this year’s cutline, the 100 breaststroke would be the top event with five swimmers.

Once selected to the meet, swimmers can swim any event they have a ‘B’ cut in–as long as they stay within the 3 individual event maximum. The 50 freestyle was a more popular “additional” event than the 100 breaststroke, which is how it moved ahead. The 100 breaststroke only had one additional mid-major entrant below the cutline (which is shown as the “invited” line on the official psych sheet).

Event # of Entrants
50 Free 7
100 Breast 6
100 Free 6
200 Breast 5
100 Back 5
200 IM 4
200 Fly 3
100 Fly 3
500 Free 3
200 Back 2
1650 Free 2
200 Free 2
400 IM 1

Here’s the list of returning athletes from last year’s championships. Notably, there are several swimmers who competed for mid-major teams last year but now swim for a Power Four program. That includes SMU’s Jack Hoagland as the Mustangs are now an ACC school and Brian Benzing, who transferred from Towson to Indiana for his fifth-year.

  • Matt Fallon (Penn) — 200 breaststroke (2nd), 100 breaststroke (19th)
  • Jack Kelly (Brown) — 200 breaststroke (8th), 100 breaststroke (18th), 200 IM (55th)
  • Kohen Rankin (U.S. Army) — 100 breaststroke (28th), 200 breaststroke (30th)
  • Karol Ostrowski (Hawaii) — 200 free relay (17th)
  • Alex Santiago (SIU) — 50 freestyle (31st), 100 freestyle (54th)

Swimmers Projected To Score

The only returning mid-major swimming scorers from last season are Fallon and Kelly. They both swam in the championship final of the 200 breaststroke with Fallon finishing as runner-up and Kelly, Brown’s first NCAA ‘A’ finalist since 1944, placing eighth. Both are in position to score again this season. Fallon is the top seed in the 200 breaststroke while Kelly is seeded third in the 200 breast (1:49.80) and fourth in the 100 breaststroke (50.60) after an excellent season.

Many of the Ivy League’s qualifiers are seeded to score. In addition to Fallon and Kelly, there’s Yale’s Noah Millard, back with the Bulldogs after an Olympic redshirt. Millard turned heads with a 4:07.68 500 freestyle at the Ivy League Championships that makes him the #2 seed. He projects to score in his other events, the 200 freestyle (16th, 1:31.86) and 1650 freestyle (6th, 14:33.47) as well.

Princeton’s Mitchell Schott had several close races with Millard at the Ivy League Championships. He matched Millard with three events above the cutline, qualifying for the 200 butterfly (13th, 1:40.42), 200 IM (13th, 1:41.44), 400 IM (17th, 3:40.69). Schott projects to score in the first two and is on the bubble of a second swim in the 400 IM. Notably, he skipped the 400 IM at Ivies in favor of the 200 free.

Pietro Ubertalli and Nicholas Finch were two other swimmers who impressed at Ivies. Ubertalli tied Dean Farris‘ conference record in the 200 backstroke (1:38.99) which helped him qualify for NCAAs. He’s ranked 10th in the event. Meanwhile, the freshman Finch blasted a 44.57 100 butterfly that makes him the 11th seed. Finally, David Schmitt rounds out the Ivy League’s projected scorers as the 16th seed in the 200 butterfly (1:40.52).

Cal Baptist’s Remi Fabiani is seeded to score in both the 50 (15th, 18.82) and 100 freestyle (7th, 41.23).

Army’s two individual qualifiers, Crush and Rankin, are seeded to score. Crush sits sixth in the 100 backstroke after his 44.53 at midseason, while Rankin swam 51.26 at last month’s ECAC Championships.

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About Sophie Kaufman

Sophie Kaufman

Sophie grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, which means yes, she does root for the Bruins, but try not to hold that against her. At 9, she joined her local club team because her best friend convinced her it would be fun. Shoulder surgery ended her competitive swimming days long ago, …

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