2024 W NCAA Previews: Alex Walsh Carries On the Virginia 200 Breaststroke Dynasty

2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 20-23, 2024
• Gabrielsen Natatorium, Athens, Georgia
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Official Psych Sheets (with cutlines)
• Invited swimmers by team (not including relay swimmers)
• Alternates list
• Eligible Relays

Women’s 200 Breaststroke

• U.S. Open Record: 2:01.29 — Kate Douglass, Virginia (2023)
• American Record: 2:01.29 — Kate Douglass, Virginia (2023)
• NCAA Record: 2:01.29 — Kate Douglass, Virginia (2023)
• 2023 NCAA Champion: 2:01.29 — Kate Douglass, Virginia

The University of Virginia is home to the swimmer who has won the last two NCAA titles in the 200 breaststroke, Kate Douglass, but she opted to turn pro instead of using her 5th season of eligibility.

In spite of her graduation, the Cavaliers have the overwhelming favorite in the event, Alex Walsh, still entered – and she didn’t even swim the race at last year’s meet.

Thus highlights the stacked depth, and versatility, of the three-time defending team champions from Charlottesville.

Walsh has always been a good breaststroker, but she hasn’t swum the 200 yard race a ton in her college career because she is so good at other races. This year, she dropped the 200 fly from her NCAA Championship schedule in spite of setting an NCAA Record in the event at this year’s ACC Championships. Instead, she will swim the 200 breaststroke, which she also won at ACCs (they don’t conflict in the five day schedule like they do in the four day schedule).

She swam 2:02.24 in the 200 breast at those ACC Championships, which surpasses Lilly King, among others, to make her the #2 performer in the history of the event behind Douglass. That also makes her the top seed by 1.60 seconds this season.

Her biggest challenger in the race? Mona McSharry of Tennessee. The Irish international McSharry is the two-time defending SEC Champion in this race, and placed 3rd at NCAAs in 2021, 20th in 2022, and 4th in 2023.

While she’s always been a better 100 breaststroker, her 200 has made huge strides over the last season-and-a-half. In the 2021-2022 season, her best time was 2:07.24. She wasn’t close to that mid-season in 2022-2023, but at SECs in 2023, she broke through for a 2:05.11, which she improved to 2:04.59 at NCAAs.

This year she has gone even lower, winning the SEC title in 2:03.84, even on a quick turnaround after racing at the World Championships in Doha the week prior (where she swam 2:04.82 in the heats).

It doesn’t seem like she was tapered for Worlds and her 57.00 in the 100 was fast, but not as fast as she went mid-season (56.87).

She seems like the most-likely swimmer to bridge that gap, though it’s a long shot.

She’s not, though, the only veteran in this field who holds multiple NCAA Championship medals in the event.

Walsh’s Virginia teammate Ella Nelson was 3rd at NCAAs in 2023, 4th in 2022, and 2nd in 2021, and she swam a personal best of 2:04.29 at the ACC Championships to finish 2nd.

Entering the season, Nelson could have felt the favorite in the race, but improvements by Walsh and McSharry might leave her in 3rd place.

The sleeper in this battle for a top three spot is Texas’ Anna Elendt. The German swimmer hasn’t had quite the same sizzle this season as she did last year, where she was 2nd in the 200 breast at NCAAs in 203:26.

This year, she had a good 100 breast at Big 12s by Big 12s standards (57.65), but her 200 was way off her best in 2:06.46.

The 100 is her clear target for the Olympics, and differential results this season support that, but she should have at least a 2:04-low in her, even if the 200 isn’t her focus, at NCAAs.

The 100 Yard Specialists

Outside of that group, the next-best in the event are a pair of 100 yard specialists who have been working to improve in the 200 yard race.

One is the 100 breaststroke Olympic Champion Lydia Jacoby from Texas. Jacoby, who sat out the fall semester for the Longhorns, has only swum three 200 yard breastrokes this season: a 2:10.42 in a dual meet against Duke in January, 2:10.18 in Big 12 prelims, and 2:05.58 to win the Big 12 title.

Last year, she was 2:04.32 at Big 12s and added a bunch of time to go 2:06.66 at NCAAs and finish 11th. Oddly, that 200 breaststroke time came in a meet where she swam a lifetime best and won the NCAA title in the 100 breaststroke (57.03). Like Elendt, the 100 and 200 for Jacoby seem to be opposing ends of a scale: when the results in one get better, in the other they suffer.

The other sprint specialist stretching it out in this 200 is USC’s Kaitlyn Dobler in 2:06.28. The #2 seed behind McSharry in the 100 breast, Dobler won dual Pac-12 titles in the 100 and 200 breaststroke two weeks ago.

Dobler was 4th at NCAAs last year in the 100 breast and 15th in the 200 breast, but her best time from the 2023 Pac-12 Championships of 2:05.66 is easily enough to make an A-Final. This becomes part of a bigger narrative for Dobler and the USC women. Many of their top swimmers struggled to match their in-season best times at the NCAA Championships. If we read “slower at Pac-12s” as an indicator of “faster at NCAAs,” though, in both cases, they seem wound up for a good meet.

Alabama’s Avery Wiseman is the 21st seed in this 200 breaststroke (2:08.22) and the 7th seed in the 100 (58.08). Unlike many of the Alabama women, she hasn’t been as good this season as she has in the past: her peak was still the 2021 Tennessee Invite, where she swam 57.79 and 2:05.46. She did finish 13th at NCAAs in the 200 breaststroke last year, but her 200 has continued to fall off since then.

At SECs, she opened this 200 breaststroke in 1:00.88, which is very fast by her standards – half-a-second better than when she went 2:05.85 at SECs last season. So if she gets that pacing worked out, she is for-sure a top-8 threat.

Stanford’s Breakout Star

Stanford freshman Caroline Bricker was one of the big stories of this NCAA season. After a dual meet in late October, she had the best time in the NCAA in the 200 breast, 200 fly, and 400 IM. At this meet she opted against a day 4 “dirty double” of the 200 breast and 200 fly, instead swimming both IM races, but at the end of a long meet she’ll have this 200 breaststroke left to swim.

Her best time of the season came at the Texas Invite in November where she went 2:06.85. Her best time coming into college was a 2:08.01 – and even that swim came only at the end of her senior year of high school.

The Stanford women don’t have the same superstar power that they’ve had for most of the last decade, but this year’s team is doing a magnificent job of developing talent like Bricker, and by this time next year, she could very well be one of those superstars.

Returning B-Finalists

Three of last year’s top 8 finishers in this event are not back this season. That leaves some room for last year’s “B” finalists to move up into the big final, though none have obviously taken command of that opportunity yet.

Duke’s Sarah Foley is the curious case here. She won the B-Final at last year’s NCAA Championship meet in 2:06.58, but this year has been really leaning-in to the 200 IM and 200 free, leaving her out of this 200 breast. At ACCs, she was only 2:09.29 in prelims (2:10.85 in finals) and is the 31st seed at NCAAs.

For relay purposes, that’s in part due to the rise of sophomore Kaelyn Gridley, who was 7th at NCAAs last year and is the 9th seed this year (2:06.92). That has made Foley into Duke’s medley relay anchor, with the senior doing what she needs to do for the team.

Georgia 5th-year Zoie Hartman was 14th at NCAAs last year in 2:08.13 (2:07.85 in prelims). A 5th-year swimmer, she was 8th at NCAAs in the 200 breast in 2021 as a sophomore, and while she has continued to get better in the event since then, so to has the event as a whole.

Last season she peaked at SECs in multiple races (2:05.48 in this 200 breast), so maybe this year’s 2:07.26 at SECs is a good sign in Georgia’s more-traditional “one big taper” training cycles (they’re not a team that has a history of being fast over-and-over again).

Other A-Final Contenders

Virginia’s Anna Keating is a better 200 breaststroker than 100 breaststroke. At NCAAs last season, she was 7th in the 200 and only 20th in the 100. She was a full-second better at the Cavalier Invite on February 11 (2:06.74) than she was at ACCs on February 24 (2:07.97), with the former swim being a new personal best.

Another Virginia breaststroker Emma Weber, a sophomore, is seeded 11th in 2:07.08 – another swimmer who was way faster at the Cavalier Invite than at ACCs (2:09.34), though both are faster than she was prior to February 2024.

Then there’s her fellow ACC compadre Abby Arens from NC State. Arens was a very good breaststroker in high school who shifted her focus to the butterfly races at NC State. This year, out of necessity, she was pressed into medley relay breaststroke duty for the Wolfpack, and with that she has also returned to the 200 breaststroke.

She was 14th in the 200 breast (2:10.71/2:09.46 prelims) and 2nd in the 100 breast (58.74) at ACCs, but has picked an unusual, Kate-Douglass-esque 50 free/100 fly/200 breast lineup for the NCAA Championships.

She was 2:07.57 in this 200 breast mid-season, and has a lifetime best of 2:07.56 from 2021. It feels like every week she gets to spend with breaststroke should give her a little more time to regain that feel, so 2:06 feels well within range in Athens.

Also entered is Emelie Fast, McSharry’s freshman teammate. She was 2nd at SECs in the 200 in 2:07.02 and enters this meet as the 10th seed.

SwimSwam’s Predictions

Darkhorse: Josie Panitz, Ohio State – Panitz has a best time of 2:07.38 from the 2023 Big Ten Championships, though she added more than two seconds at NCAAs. At this year’s Big Tens, she was better in the 100 (58.36 in prelims, 58.49 in finals for 2nd) than the 200 (2:08.59 in finals for 2nd) at that meet. Unsurprisingly in that 200 at Big Tens, her opening speed was there, but she didn’t hold on at the end. That says *taper* is waiting.