We’ve already done a deep dive into our recruiting archives, looking at how the top 20 recruits from the high school class of 2016 did after four NCAA seasons. Now it’s time to look back at a more recent recruit ranking: the current year’s freshmen, whom we ranked in the spring of 2018, then re-ranked one year later after the close of their high school careers.
Relevant links:
- Top 20 recruits, high school class of 2019 (original rank as of April 2018)
- Top 20 recruits re-rank, high school class of 2019 (ranked on June 2019)
Naturally, this analysis has a far smaller sample size than our reports from the past two days, so it’s much more difficult to read too much into these numbers. Still, it’s useful to look at which first-year NCAA swimmers had the best performances relative to their recruiting ranks.
2020 update: we typically use NCAA scoring to help analyze these recruit rankings. With the 2020 NCAA Championships canceled by coronavirus, we lose out on a pretty valuable data point. Still, we make do with what we’ve got, which is projected NCAA scoring (based on the psych sheet) along with NCAA invites and other accolades from the regular season.
The ranks listed below are from our re-rank last summer – they are not current ranks of NCAA athletes. We also do not rank international athletes as recruits, as it’s hard to predict if and when they’ll come to the U.S., and which class with which to include them.
TOP 20 RANKED RECRUITS
HM=Honorable mention
| Rank | Name | College Team | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points | Other |
| 1 | Kate Douglass | Virginia | 51 | |
| 2 | Zoie Hartman | Georgia | 45 | |
| 3 | Katharine Berkoff | NC State | 16 | |
| 4 | Emily Weiss | Indiana | 18 | |
| 5 | Coleen Gillilan | Notre Dame | NCAA invite | |
| 6 | Ella Nelson | Virginia | 33 | |
| 7 | Kaitlynn Sims | Michigan | 17 | |
| 8 | Caitlin Brooks | Kentucky | 15 | |
| 9 | Ayla Spitz | Cal | NCAA invite | |
| 10 | Kelly Pash | Texas | 4 | |
| 11 | Zephy Koh | Princeton | no invite | |
| 12 | Alexandra Crisera | Stanford | 6 | |
| 13 | Hannah Bach | Ohio State | 13 | |
| 14 | Madelyn Donohoe | Virginia | NCAA invite | |
| 15 | Cora Dupre | Indiana | 17 | |
| 16 | Lexi Cuomo | Virginia | 7 | |
| 17 | Ashley Turak | Indiana | NCAA invite | |
| 18 | Lindsay Looney | Arizona State | NCAA invite | |
| 19 | Ellie VanNote | UNC | NCAA invite | |
| 20 | Mary Smutny | Texas | no invite | |
| HM | Caroline Bentz | Virginia Tech | deferred | |
| HM | Talia Bates | Florida | no invite | |
| HM | Chloe Clark | Cal | no invite | |
| HM | Caroline Cooper | UNC | no invite |
The hits:
- Virginia’s Kate Douglass was on track to be a historic recruit, with 50+ points as a freshman. Since 2015, only 4 freshmen have scored more than 50 individually: Simone Manuel (57 in 2015), Ella Eastin (57 in 2016) Katie Ledecky (58.5 in 2017), andTaylor Ruck (50 in 2019).
- Not to be forgotten behind Douglass’s excellence, Georgia rookie Zoie Hartman was living up to her #2 billing with 45 projected points.
- Virginia had an outstanding class, with four freshmen earning NCAA invites and three of the four projected to score. Ella Nelson had 33 psych sheet points, and she and Douglass sat 1-3 in the class in projected scoring.
- It was generally a great year for our ranked recruits. 18 of the top 20 earned NCAA invites and 12 were projected to score.
The misses:
- Not many. Zephy Koh didn’t register a swim this year, and doesn’t appear on Princeton’s roster.
- Mary Smutny mostly went backwards for Texas. She was 1:45/4:42 free and 1:56 fly out of high school, but went 1:47/4:45 and 1:59 at mid-season and backwards a little further at Big 12s.
- Caroline Bentz deferred her enrollment and should join VT in a future season.
UNRANKED RECRUITS
And of course, we’ll include everyone’s favorite part: which unranked recruits earned NCAA invites and projected to score points this season – both domestic up-and-comers and international pickups.
DOMESTIC:
| Name | College Team | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
| Ellie Marquardt | Princeton | 12 |
| Rachel Klinker | Cal | 9 |
| Gillian Davey | Kentucky | 4 |
| Felicia Pasadyn | Harvard | 2 |
| Meredith Rees | Missouri | 1 |
- Princeton’s Ellie Marquardt is the top breakout candidate so far. Seeded 7th in the 500 free, Marquardt had massive drops this year compared to when we ranked her recruiting classes. As of our first ranks, she was 4:52/17:08 in free and 4:29 in the IM. By our re-rank, Marquardt was 4:42 in the 500 and 4:16 in IM, but remained at 17:08 in the mile. This year, she went 4:36/16:06 and 4:14.
- Klinker was an honorable mention as of our original rankings, but fell off the list in our re-rank. She was projected to score 9 this year by virtue of a drop from 1:56.9 to 1:53.8 in the 200 fly.
INTERNATIONAL:
| Name | College Team | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
| Hannah Brunzell | Northwestern | 3 |
Other 2020 Freshman NCAA Invitees
Here’s a look at the other unranked freshmen to earn 2020 NCAA invites individually:
| NCAA Invites – 2020 | |
| Name | Team |
| Jade Foelske | Arizona State |
| Anna-Julia Kutsch | Auburn |
| Averee Preblee | Auburn |
| Abbey Webb | Auburn |
| Sarah Dimeco | Cal |
| Eloise Riley | Cal |
| Emma Shuppert | Duke |
| Kristen Stege | East Carolina |
| Kathleen Golding | Florida |
| Sydney Vanovermeiren | Florida State |
| Carla Gildersleeve | Indiana |
| Tonni McNeese | Kentucky |
| Abigail Hay | Louisville |
| Madison Luther | Louisville |
| Christiana Regenauer | Louisville |
| Niamh Robinson | LSU |
| Katharine Foley | NC State |
| Ally Larson | Northwestern |
| Emma Lepisova | Northwestern |
| Amy Fulmer | Ohio State |
| Josephine Panitz | Ohio State |
| Taylor Steele | South Carolina |
| Emma Wheal | Stanford |
| Bridget Semenuk | Texas |
| Elizabeth Byrne | Tulane |
Note:
– Ouch Texas women! What is going on there?
– Virginia freshmen did well
– All the freshmen 50+ points in the past were from Stanford
– Only a few Cal freshmen made the list
– Stanford was much quieter this year
In theory, due to their conference domination, the only Texas women who would have needed to taper at all for the Big 12 (5) meet would be any that were still trying to get an NCAA invite. If true, then they could have been in line to outperform their psych sheet numbers by a good amount. That said, I seem to recall reading that they have underperformed at NCAAs the last few years so who knows!
Crazy to think that scoring the psych sheets resulted with Tennessee in second when they do not even have a single freshman invited.
Senior class was their best class, looks like they got COVID-19ed
Good observation – TN had their chance which is now gone. They are hurting next season.
Don’t you need to factor in their impact on relays as well?
Ideally, yes. But what we find every year is that relays are very difficult to quantify. Some athletes don’t get many relay opportunities because they go to a top-level program and aren’t fast enough to make relays as a freshman. Some get lots of relay points by making it as the fourth on a very fast relay, despite splitting slower than a swimmer in a program with less depth. Then there’s DQs to grapple with, plus programs that don’t qualify relays for NCAAs. If there was a good way to accurately compare relay impact through numbers, we’d do it, but for now, the best option is generally just to reference relay impact when it’s relevant, rather than trying to calculate… Read more »
Caroline bentz is class of 24