2024-25 NCAA Digest: Trying To Make Sense Of A Blazingly Fast First Week of Midseasons

Let’s not beat around the bush friends—this was a ridiculously fast week in college swimming. The first week of midseason invites are in the books and there were jaw-dropping swims all around the country, including multiple NCAA record-breaking performances. We’ll be putting out articles on the new top times of the season and the NCAA relay qualification landscape separately; here, the goal is to simply celebrate as many of the excellent performances this past weekend in a reasonably sized article length.

To do that, we’ve broken this digest down into several different “award” categories. Obviously, there were many more great swims during midseasons than we have space to mention so if you don’t see your personal performance of the week mentioned, feel free to drop it in the comments below.

Swimmers Of The Week

• Jacob Hamlin, Tampa: Hamlin had a sensational weekend at the Gamecock Invitational. He set two DII NCAA records, taking over the 500/1650 freestyle records. On the first night of the competition, he clocked a 4:16.84, breaking a record that had stood since 2016 (4:17.09). It was Hamlin’s second personal best of the day, as he broke 4:20 for the first time in prelims. On the final day, he swam 14:55.02, breaking the old record from 2021 by a tenth. It was another big drop for Hamlin; he’d never broken 15 minutes before.
• Gretchen Walsh, Virginia: Just because jaw-dropping SCY swims are the standard that Gretchen Walsh has set for herself, doesn’t make her performances any less special. Her week was highlighted by her new NCAA record in the 100 fly, where she swam 47.35 to take .07 seconds off her standard. She now owns the top six swims in history, all done in the 18 months since Kate Douglass set the NCAA record at 48.46 at 2024 NCAAs. Walsh also swam a lifetime best 1:48.18 in the 200 back and clocked 20.54/49.31 in the 50 free/100 back. She almost broke 20 seconds on a relay split again, swimming 20.09 for the second-fastest performance ever.
• Kaley McIntyre, NYU: The reigning D3 Swimmer of the Year went to work this weekend at the Phoenix Fall Classic. She swam season-bests of 22.76/49.07/1:47.59. She’s now the top swimmer of the season in the 100/200 freestyle, and the only person sub-50 seconds in the former. She’s within a half-second of her personal best in the 100 free.
• Noah Millard, Yale: Millard turned heads two seasons ago with a 4:10.62 in the 500 freestyle, the fastest swim by a mid-major swimmer in NCAA history. He’s back with Yale after a season out of college swimming and is back helping light up the mid-majors. At the Ohio State Invite, he swam lifetime bests of 1:32.42/14:33.47 in the 200/1650 freestyle, moving up to third among mid-major swimmers in the 200 freestyle and second in the 1650. He’s less than two seconds off the all-time mid-major record in the 1650 freestyle, held by Penn’s Chris Swanson at 14:31.54. His freshman teammate Nicholas Finch also climbed on to the rankings, tying for 6th in the 100 fly.

Swims Of The Week

• Claire Curzan, Virginia: In her first midseason invite with the Virginia Cavaliers, Claire Curzan smashed the women’s 200 backstroke NCAA and American records. She swam 1:46.87, breaking Beata Nelson’s NCAA record of 1:47.26 and Regan Smith’s American record of 1:47.16. Curzan had a disappointing Olympic Trials and didn’t qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic team but she’s turned the page here and shown that the Virginia training is working for her. It’s also the 60th American record for the Cavaliers since 2021 (men and women combined).
• Agata Naskret, Colorado Mesa: Agata Naskret, the defending DII champion in the 100 backstroke, reset her own DII record while at altitude at the 2024 CMU Invitational. Naskret opened her race with a 25.39, already under her old record, then closed in 26.57 to stop the clock at 51.96, bettering her record by .56 seconds and bringing the DII mark sub-52 seconds for the first time.
• Julian Smith, Florida: It’s not every day that someone breaks a Caeleb Dressel record. Smith has been a key piece of the Gators’ relays for seasons now, and has steadily improved in his individual events as well. We’ve known about his clutch relay performances for a while now, but his 49.98 in the 100 breaststroke—and SEC record—was a breakthrough to a new level for him. He’s now introduced himself as a legitimate threat for the 2024 NCAA title after his 7th-place finish last year.

Relays Of The Week:

• Drury Men, 400 MR: At the 2024 SMU Invite, the Drury men took down the Division II 400 medley relay record—the fourth DII record broken this past week. Ivan Adamchuk (46.24), Davi Mourao (51.99), Alejandro Villarejo (45.74), and Lucas Mineur (42.86) swam 3:06.83, breaking the record of 3:07.11 that McKendree set at the 2024 DII NCAA Championships by .28 seconds.
• For the first time in 18 seasons, the Pitt women will send a relay to the NCAA championships. This generation of the Pitt women’s team hit an important benchmark for the vitality of a program at the Texas Hall of Fame Invite as Claire Jansen (24.25), Cecilia Viberg (26.89), Sophie Yendell (22.52) and Avery Kudlac (22.15) swam 1:36.24 in the 200 medley relay for an NCAA ‘A’ cut and a school record.

Relay Performers Of The Week:

• Jordan Crooks, Tennessee: Jordan Crooks had a fantastic midseason meet from top to bottom (including a 40.26 flat start 100 free), but it was the relays where he shined. He let us know what was up from night one, leading off the Vols’ 800 freestyle relay in a lifetime best 1:30.00 for the 8th fastest swim all-time. Then, he dropped a 17.57 50 freestyle split—the third fastest all-time—which makes him the 2nd fastest performer in history. He closed out his meet with a 39.89 100 freestyle split, becoming the first man to break 40 seconds on a relay split.
• Loyola men’s breaststrokers: The Loyola men’s breaststroke crew went off at the 2024 H2ounds Invitational. On the relay front, they joined an exclusive club with Indiana, Texas, and Alabama as the only schools this season that had their male breaststrokers split sub-24 seconds on the 200-medley ‘A’ ‘B’, and ‘C’ relays. Not only that, but the Greyhounds were the only program with three 23.70 or better splits as freshman Brennan Coyle split 23.35, Michael Gozdan went 23.70, and Michael Venit swam 23.69.

Breakout Of The Week:

• Rex Maurer, Texas: Rex Maurer’s standout week makes a legitimate case for just about every section of this digest. But we’ve gone with breakout because even though his lifetime bests pointed towards the fact that he could be an impact swimmer at the national level in college swimming, his performances this weekend pushed him into a new stratosphere. Maurer has been rapidly improving since beginning to train at Texas, but if you predicted that he was going to turn in a 4:04 500 freestyle this weekend—well, we tip our caps to you. Maurer’s 4:04.45 is a new American record, taking down the mark that Carson Foster swam hours earlier. He blazed through the rest of the weekend as well, swimming personal bests in the 200 free (1:31.59), 1650 free (14:30.47), 100 back (45.36), 200 back (1:38.27), 100 fly (49.02), and 400 IM (3:34.19).

Odds and Ends from the First Week Of Invites:

A couple of things didn’t fit nicely into our categories—it felt like we were cramming them into a section they didn’t belong, or putting one more thing would’ve been one too many entries. But there are a couple of things that we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention…

The Women’s Distance Renaissance Continues

Last year, we wrote about the resurgence of women’s distance swimming as 17 women had broken 4:40 in the 500 freestyle through the first week of midseason invites. That number pales in comparison to this season as 24 women have already been under that mark. They’re led by Jillian Cox (4:30.68), Bella Sims (4:31.06), and Aurora Roghair (4:31.63) who are the only women who have broken 4:34 this season. Sims got the ball rolling at the Georgia Invite, swimming the second-fastest 500 freestyle of her career and faster than her time to win 2024 NCAAs. About an hour later at the Texas Hall of Fame Invite, Cox and Roghair treated us to the first of their thrilling distance races. They both hit lifetime bests as Cox broke the Texas record for a third time this season. To close out the meet, they both swam lifetime bests in the 1650 free as well, with Cox becoming the 10th fastest performer in 15:34.66 and Roghair swimming 15:36.43.

More Entries Mid-Major All-Time Rankings

Yale teammates Millard and Finch weren’t the only ones to add their names to the all-time mid-major rankings this past weekend. (We’ll do a full post-invite update separately that includes marks set before midseason after Princeton and Harvard have competed in their invites).

• Johnny Crush reset the Army men’s 100 backstroke program record for the third time this season, clocking 45.08 to move up to fourth all-time among mid-major swimmers. Dean Farris holds that mid-major record at 43.66.
• There were two updates to the men’s 100 breast all-time rankings. 200 breast NCAA ‘A’ finalist Jack Kelly moved up to third in mid-major history with a 51.36 at the 2024 Bruno Invite. Delaware’s Matvei Namakonov broke onto the list at sixth overall with a program record 51.63, knocking Toni Sabev, another Delaware swimmer, off the list.
• Finch and LaSalle’s Felix Jedbratt both clocked 45.50 in the 100 butterfly at their respective invites, tying for sixth in the all-time rankings.

Men’s Division III 50 Freestylers Continue To Impress

The DIII sprinters have been impressing all season and they showed out at invites this past weekend. Before the first round of invites, Casey Jacobs owned the fastest time of the DIII season in 20.28. That swim now ranks eighth, as sprinters at the Total Performance Invitational and the Phoenix Fall Classic impressed. Carnegie Mellon’s Brayden Morford became the first DIII swimmer to break 20 seconds this season, swimming a program record of 19.82 leading off the 200 freestyle relay. It was his first time sub-20, improving from the 20.08 he swam last season.

Jonathan Tang and Sebastien Vernhes broke the University of Chicago school record in consecutive heats. First, Vernhes swam a 20.05, then Tang shaved three-hundredths off the mark immediately after with a 20.03.

Also breaking Jacobs’ previous top time in the division were Djordje Dragojlovic (20.14), Arnaj Deshpande (20.17), DJ Lloyd (20.25), and Luke Schwenk (20.26).