2024-25 NCAA Digest: It’s Raining Records In October

It’s the end of October and records just keep falling from the trees. From world records to pool records, the last week in college swimming had it all. Welcome back for another digest for the 2024-25 NCAA season, where we’ll get you caught up on all the action from this week.

Florida vs. Virginia Record Bonanza

World, continental, and U.S. Open records…oh my. The short-course meters dual meet between Florida and Virginia was one for the books—literally. Gretchen Walsh has turned in many exceptional dual meet performances in her years with the Cavaliers, but this was her finest. She started by swimming three American records in under an hour; leading off the 200 medley relay with a 25.37 50 backstroke, then clocking 54.89 in the 100 backstroke, and 23.10 in the 50 freestyle.

Walsh saved the best for last. After scratching the 100 freestyle, Walsh raced a 100 IM time trial and destroyed Katinka Hosszu’s world record, bringing it under 56 seconds for the first time with a 55.98.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐈𝐌 (𝐒𝐂𝐌)
Gretchen Walsh adds a 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐃 to her three American records in her final swim of the meet
Watch UVA vs Florida live on ACCNX #GoHoos
📹 https://t.co/0zLXvyWORU pic.twitter.com/67lnRmfaWt

— Virginia Swimming and Dive (@UVASwimDive) October 18, 2024

Behind Walsh’s theatrics, there were even more records set. NCAA meets are almost exclusively raced short course yards, but a notable exception to this rule is the 2004 NCAA Championships, which were held in short course meters. So, the U.S. Open records for the 200 medley relay still stood 20 years later, as they weren’t raced in U.S.-based ISL meets. Both the Virginia women and the Florida men crushed the U.S. Open record. After Walsh led off with a 50-back American record, Zoe Skirboll, Claire Curzan, and Maxine Parker helped set a U.S Open record of 1:44.14, crushing the previous record of 1:49.02, held by Auburn.

The Tigers also held the men’s record—until the Florida men dove in. Jonny Marshall, Julian Smith, Josh Liendo, and Ed Fullum-Huot made it two-for-two with U.S Open records to kick off the meet, swimming 1:31.31 to break the previous mark by 2.94 seconds.

Aimee Canny lowered her 200-meter freestyle African record, swimming a 1:54.13. Canny held the previous record at 1:54.89 from 2021.

More Records!

Don’t worry, it wasn’t just Virginia and Florida that had all the record-breaking fun last week. At the Georgia vs. Florida State dual meet, the Seminoles’ Maddy Huggins tied the 200-breast program record of 2:07.98 that she swam just last week.

Over in the Big Ten, Minnesota’s YuTong Wang and Northwestern’s Kyle Ly set school records on the diving boards. The Minnesota sophomore set a program record on the 1-meter board, scoring 435.15 points, surpassing the previous record by 14.80 points and helping the Golden Gophers remain undefeated. Ly, a freshman for the Wildcats, tallied 384.30 points on the 3-meter to establish a new school record during Northwestern’s win over Cincinnati.

Nine pool records fell as the Yale men and women faced UMass-Amherst in an unscored scrimmage meet. This meet is usually a record-filled affair; last year, seven pool records fell. Sophomore Caroline Riggs got two pool records for the price of one swim, setting a 1000 freestyle pool record en route to another record in the 1650 free. Riggs clocked 16:43.35 in the 1650, which is the fourth-fastest time in the league this season per SwimCloud.

At Loyola Maryland’s dual against Lafayette, Joe Hayburn, another sophomore, swam two records as well, clocking 49.06/1:47.66 in the 100/200 backstroke. His teammate Lily Mead broke a 24-year-old pool record with her 2:20.24 swim in the 200 breaststroke.

On the boards, Duke senior Margo O’Meara broke the Blue Devils’ 14-year-old pool record on the 3-meter board as the team split their dual with Virginia Tech. O’Meara helped the Duke women win their meet by scoring 380.18 points on 3-meter, which is also the most points O’Meara has scored on the apparatus as a Blue Devil.

DIII NYU Sweeps DI Fordham

The Division III action is beginning to get started for the 2024-25 season. In a Manhattan vs. Bronx face-off it was Manhattan’s Division III team, NYU, that took the win against the Bronx-based Division I Fordham Rams.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NYU Swimming (@nyuswimming)

The CSCAA has the NYU women ranked 3rd and the men ranked 5th to start the season and they backed up those rankings by winning 20 of the 32 total events. 2023-24 DIII swimmer of the Year Kaley McIntyre led the women’s side with three individual victories (24.05/53.03/1:53.56 in the 50/100/200 free) while NCAA 200 fly champion Caitlin Marshall claimed victory in her signature event (2:06.50) and Anna Li swept the breaststrokes (1:05.48/2:23.05).

On the men’s side, the freshmen stood out as Maksyn Nechydyuk (200 breast/200 IM), Teddy McQuad (200 back), Youngsoo Ahn-Song (100 breast), Evan Jue (1000 free), and Petar Dubovac (200 fly) all earned their first collegiate wins.

More Notable Results

• The magic number in the NCAA this season is 1:39. Luca Urlando hit that number twice in the Georgia vs. Florida State dual meet. He bettered the 1:39.87 he swam in the 200 fly last week with a 1:39.03, coming .21 seconds from his lifetime best. He doubled up by swimming a lifetime best 1:39.39 to win the 200 backstroke for his first sub-1:40 performance. He now owns the top times in the NCAA in the 100 fly, 200 fly, and the 200 back, the latter of which is an “off-event” for him.
• Jere Hribar is also having an excellent start to the season. After a strong performance at LSU’s dual against Texas (which included an 18.30 50 free split) the sophomore followed up by swimming season-bests of 19.45/42.99 in the 50/100 free at a Navy-hosted quad meet. The latter of those two swims ranks him 8th in the NCAA this season.
• The Michigan women’s freestyle crew, led by Lindsay Flynn, looked strong as they swept Wisconsin and Notre Dame this weekend. In addition to winning the 50/100 freestyle (22.35/49/19), Flynn anchored two Michigan relays in 21.78. That includes the 200 freestyle relay where she, Stephanie Balduccini (22.63 lead-off), Brady Kendall (22.10), and Claire Newman (22.13) clocked a 1:28.64 to lead the NCAA so far this season.
• Torri Huske and Jack Alexy made their season debuts at the Stanford vs. Cal Triple Distance Meet. They both swept their disciplines in this uniquely formatted meet, with Huske sweeping the women’s butterfly in 23.31/51.63/1:56.39. These were her first swims in the league since the 2023 NCAA Championships. Alexy swept the men’s sprint freestyle group, clocking 19.60/43.65/1:37.16. Overall, event wins on the men’s side were evenly split, while the Stanford women won 80% of the day’s events.