It’s that time of the year again. SwimSwam will be previewing the top 12 men’s and women’s teams (and then some) from the 2024 NCAA Championships. Follow along with the College Swimming Preview Channel. Want to read even more? Check out the latest edition of the SwimSwam magazine.
#3 FLORIDA GATORS
Key Losses: Isabel Ivey (45 NCAA Points, 4 NCAA Relays), Aris Runnels (1 NCAA Relay), Carina Lumia (NCAA Qualifier), Ekaterina Nikonova (Northwestern Transfer – Previous NCAA Qualifier)
Key Additions: HM Sofia Plaza (NC – IM, Breast), BOTR Addison Reese (FL – Fly, IM), BOTR Gracie Weyant (FL – IM/Breast), Anita Bottazzo (Italy – Breast/Fly), Julie Brousseau (Canada – Free/IM), Julia Heimstead (Arizona Grad Transfer- Free/Fly), Katelyn Schroeder (Canada – Back), Summer Smith (Tennessee Transfer – Fly/Back/IM), Nicole Maier (Miami OH transfer – free/IM)
Returning Fifth-Years: Mabel Zavaros (Previous NCAA Scorer- IM/Back)
GRADING CRITERIA
Over the years, we’ve gone back and forth on how to project points, ranging from largely subjective rankings to more data-based grading criteria based on ‘projected returning points.’ We like being as objective as possible, but we’re going to stick with the approach we’ve adopted post-Covid. The “stars” will rely heavily on what swimmers actually did last year, but we’ll also give credit to returning swimmers or freshmen who have posted times that would have scored last year.
Since we only profile the top 12 teams in this format, our grades are designed with that range in mind. In the grand scheme of college swimming and compared to all other college programs, top 12 NCAA programs would pretty much all grade well across the board. But in the interest of making these previews informative, our grading scale is tough – designed to show the tiers between the good stroke groups, the great ones, and the 2015 Texas fly group types.
- 5 star (★★★★★) – a rare, elite NCAA group projected to score 25+ points per event
- 4 star (★★★★) – a very, very good NCAA group projected to score 15-24 points per event
- 3 star (★★★) – a good NCAA group projected to score 5-14 points per event
- 2 star (★★) – a solid NCAA group projected to score 1-4 points per event
- 1 star (★) – an NCAA group that is projected to score no points per event, though that doesn’t mean it’s without potential scorers – they’ll just need to leapfrog some swimmers ahead of them to do it
We’ll grade each event discipline: sprint free (which we define to include all the relay-distance freestyle events, so 50, 100 and 200), distance free, IM, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and diving. Use these grades as a jumping-off point for discussion, rather than a reason to be angry.
Also, keep in mind that we are publishing many of these previews before teams have posted finalized rosters. We’re making our assessments based on the best information we have available at the time of publication, but we reserve the right to make changes after publication based on any new information that may emerge regarding rosters. If that does happen, we’ll make certain to note the change.
2023-2024 LOOKBACK
The Gators had a phenomenal season last year, led by standout performances from Bella Sims, Emma Weyant, and Isabel Ivey. The trio each made three ‘A’ finals, with Sims going as far as winning the 200 free and 500 free. As a freshman, Bella Sims scored a monumental 56 points for Florida, also finishing third in the 200 backstroke. Isabel Ivey and Emma Weyant also had phenomenal meets, earning 45 and 48 points respectively.
Florida’s relays had exceptional performances as well, finishing top four in all except for the 10th-place 200 freestyle relay (which was special for its own reason). Most importantly, the Florida women pulled off quite the impressive achievement of winning the 800 freestyle relay, upsetting Virginia and Stanford, the teams who had won the event for the past few years. The medley relays placed third and fourth, and the Gator women capped off the meet with a second-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay. One of the most peculiar moments of the meet came from the second day of finals, where Olivia Peoples swam butterfly on the 200 freestyle relay– and beat her front-crawl freestyle split from the same event at SECs. This came as a result of Ekaterina Nikonova’s late-season injury, which prevented her from swimming the event at NCAAs, so Peoples filled in. They still scored 14 points, placing 10th overall.
Scoring from the ‘A’ final in nine different individual events helped the Florida women skyrocket in the team rankings, doubling their points from 2023 to 2024 and improving their ranking by five places. In 2023, they scored 179 points and finished ninth. Last year, they scored 364 to finish third overall, bettering their score by 185 points between the two years.
SPRINT FREESTYLE: ★★★½
Bella Sims is truly a force of nature in the pool, and her versatility across the board makes ranking this team (with the knowledge that she can only swim three events at NCAAs) a challenge. Sims holds best times that would have scored at NCAAs in nearly every single event, all except for the 100 butterfly and the two breaststrokes. This includes all five freestyle distances from 50-1650, both backstrokes, both IMs, and the 200 fly– that’s 10 events that she has the potential to score in at the highest level of competition. As she found great success in her schedule last year, winning both the 200 and 500 freestyles and placing third in the 200 backstroke, I’ll operate under the assumption that she’ll have a similar schedule this year.
That being said, she did compete in (and win) the 200 freestyle at NCAAs last year, with Isabel Ivey placing seventh and earning 13 points. The pair earned all 37 of Florida’s points from the sprint freestyle events with this one event.
Micayla Cronk, alongside Sims, holds best times that would have scored in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyles at NCAAs, but she missed her taper and added time between SECs and National Championships. Her best times of 21.85 and 47.61, both swam at 2024 SECs, are nationally competitive, and she would’ve placed highly in the B-Finals of both events last year. The same can be said for her best time of 1:43.77 in the 200 freestyle, which she swam at SECs in 2023. Cronk finished 37th, 31st, and 37th in the 50, 100, and 200 this past year. If she can successfully hit her stride at the end of the season, we could see some impressive numbers in this section from the Florida women.
Julie Brousseau could be another key addition for the Gators this year, after finishing a great long course season at the Olympic games, anchoring Canada’s 4×200 freestyle relay to a fourth-place finish. Her best long course times of 1:57.60/4:08.12 in the 200/400 freestyles could add some more firepower to the already-deep longer-sprint-free group, assuming she can translate her times well. They’ll also add Julia Heimstead, who was an NCAA qualifier in the 50 freestyle for the University of Arizona last year. Heimstead’s time of 22.52 placed her 53rd at the 2024 NCAA Championships.
The Gators also add Miami (OH) transfer Nicole Maier, who was 47.77 in the 100 free and 1:43.90 in the 200 free last season at the Mid-American Conference Championships. She ended up 22nd at NCAAs in the 100 free (47.95) and raced the 400 IM over the 200 free, but there’s no questioning that she’ll help the Gator relays.
DISTANCE FREESTYLE: ★★★★★
Historically, the distance freestyle group is one of Florida’s strongest, as swimmers like Bobby Finke and Kieran Smith trained with the Gators collegiately and now they swim with Katie Ledecky (who joined the Florida group in 2021) as professionals, training under Anthony Nesty. This year should be no exception for the long-distance crew.
Bella Sims and Emma Weyant headline this group once again, coming off of a 1-2 finish in the 500 freestyle from 2024’s NCAAs. Sims lived up to our ranking as the top recruit in the class of 2023, starting the meet off with a bang and winning the event. Last year, Emma Weyant scored the most points for the Gators in the distance free, as she also swam the 1650, placing fifth. Between Sims and Weyant, the pair will return 51 points from the distance events alone, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down.
Beyond Sims and Weyant, the Gators qualified three more swimmers for the 500 and two more for the 1650. Caroline Pennington and Anna Auld both swam to season-best times in the 1650, placing 19th and 34th respectively. Pennington was less than half a second away from scoring at NCAAs, swimming a 16:02.93 when a 16:02.47 placed 16th. The pair were joined by JoJo Ramey in the 500, with Pennington finishing 47th, Ramey 53rd, and Auld at 57th. Julie Brousseau also has the potential to make an impact at SECs and NCAAs, with her best 400 time of 4:08.12 converting to around 4:38, a time that would’ve comfortably made it into the B-Final.
Nicole Maier swam a best time of 4:39.73 last year at NCAAs in the 500 free, narrowly missing the points. A small drop and she could score.
BACKSTROKE: ★★★★
Bella Sims, once again, comes into this season having scored very well in another event, this time the 200 backstroke. Last year she placed third in a very close race with Phoebe Bacon and Kennedy Noble, earning 17 points for her team to round out the individual races in her meet.
The 200 backstroke will be very strong again this year for Florida, as they’ll also return Catie Choate and JoJo Ramey. Choate rounded out the ‘A’ final with an eighth-place finish, scoring 11 points and Ramey finished 11th, earning six points, both contributing to the 34 points the Gators earned in this event alone. The best part about this? All three swimmers are sophomores this year, which bodes well for the future of this group.
Sims’ best time of 50.02 would have been second at NCAAs last year, only behind fifth-year Katharine Berkoff. It’s possible we could see an event shakeup from Sims this season, but seeing as the 100 back is two events after the 200 freestyle, the safer option would appear for her to stick with the one-individual-event-per-day schedule.
One of Florida’s biggest losses comes from Aris Runnels, who recently hung up the goggles after three years in the pool for the Gators. She led off the 200 medley relay, and was the fastest finisher in the 100 backstroke, swimming to a 21st place finish. Catie Choate also qualified in the 100 back, swimming to a 52.49 to place 35th.
Canadian newcomer Katelyn Schroeder will join the Gator backstroke crew with long course best times of 1:01.31 and 2:12.24, times that convert roughly to 54 low and 1:56 high. With these converted times, she’s not quite in the SEC scoring conversation yet, but some drops would benefit her greatly and notch her comfortably in the B-Final at SECs.
BREASTSTROKE: ★★
The Gators will return three swimmers who swam under the 1:01 mark in the 100 breaststroke last year, led by incoming sophomore Molly Mayne. Her best times of 58.68 and 2:07.72, both swam at the Georgia Fall Invitational, would have placed her in both B-Finals at NCAAs. She was slightly off in the postseason, still swimming under a minute but not under 59 seconds in the 100 breast at both SECs and NCAAs. She followed the same trajectory in the 200 breaststroke, going a 2:12 at national championships to place 52nd. She’ll need to find that stride from last fall again if she wants to be competitive at the national level, something well within the realm of possibility.
Grace Rainey, one of the next fastest swimmers in the 100 breast and the next best returner in the 200, has been as fast as 59.71 during her pre-collegiate career but hasn’t yet cracked the minute barrier at Florida. She’s also slightly off of her best in the 200, but her times of 1:00.78 and 2:10.73 have been enough to notch her into the top 10 performers in Florida history, and she’ll look to improve her places in the upcoming year. Rainey scored points from both C-Finals at SECs last year as a freshman.
Florida brings in Italian recruit Anita Bottazzo, who was a finalist in the 50 breaststroke at the 2023 World Championships. Her best times of 30.02 and 1:07.17, which loosely translate to a 26 low and a 59 mid, will be competitive in Florida’s breaststroke group. If she can hit a 59.61, which her current time translates to, she’d be on the cusp of placing in the ‘A’ final at SECs. Sofia Plaza and Gracie Weyant, both IMers with solid 200 breaststrokes, will also be in immediate high-scoring contention at SECs with their best times of 2:10.55 and 2:11.98
BUTTERFLY: ★★★
The butterfly group is one of the few for UF where the shorter distance is stronger than the longer, largely thanks to Olivia Peoples. Peoples, another very versatile swimmer at Florida, backed up her decision to swim butterfly instead of freestyle on the 200 free relay, finishing sixth place in the 100 butterfly the next day. She finished in a 50.93 to earn 13 points with a very solid swim for the Gators, though her best time of 50.45 would’ve placed her fourth. Rounding out the Florida fly group at nationals, Lainy Kruger and Zoe Dixon both swam the 200 fly, placing 29th and 32nd.
Both Peoples and Bella Sims finished conference competition as SEC champions in the butterfly events, with Peoples winning the 100 in a 50.45 and Sims setting an SEC record to win the 200 in a time of 1:51.45. Sims did not compete in the 200 fly at NCAAs, instead electing for the 200 back (which gave her more time to recover before the 400 freestyle relay).
Addison Reese and Julia Heimstead come in with best times of 52.94/1:55.97 and 51.61/1:54.57 in the fly events. Reese, a BOTR Florida native, will be well within scoring range at SECs, especially in the 200. Heimstead was an NCAA qualifier in both events, where she finished 35th and 22nd respectively. She was 0.61 seconds off of qualifying for finals in the 200 fly, and her best time would have qualified her as 15th.
IM: ★★★★★
The 200 IM was one of Florida’s deepest events last year, with the team qualifying an impressive seven swimmers to NCAAs. They sent eight to the scoring finals at SECs, and returned with an SEC champion in Bella Sims. Sims did not race the 200 IM at NCAAs, but she didn’t need to for the Gator women to score some significant points. Isabel Ivey and Zoe Dixon scored a total of 28 points from the ‘A’ final, finishing second and eighth. The team will miss Ivey in this event next year, but they have the likes of Lainy Kruger, Julia Podkoscielny, Molly Mayne, and Catie Choate, who all will return after swimming the 200 IM at NCAAs.
Dixon also scored some ‘A’ final points in the 400 IM, finishing seventh to round out her individual total of 23 points.
Emma Weyant finished in a safe second place in the 400 IM behind fellow Olympic IMer Alex Walsh, breaking four minutes for the first time in her career to go a 3:59.00 and score 17 points. She’s the second fastest swimmer in Florida history in this event, now less than a second off of Elizabeth Beisel’s 3:58.35 from 2012. With these 17 points as well as her distance freestyle collection, Weyant closed out her individual meet with 48 individual points.
A BOTR recruit from the high school class of 2024, Gracie Weyant (also an IM specialist) will join her older sister in Gainesville next year, coming in with best times of 1:58.64 and 4:16.98. Also joining her is Sofia Plaza, an HM recruit with best IM times of 1:59.04 and 4:08.64. As of right now, Plaza’s 400 IM time is only half a second away from what it took to earn a second swim in the event at NCAAs. Summer Smith, a transfer from Tennessee, will finally get the chance to compete for Florida after taking a medical redshirt last year. She holds a best 400 IM time of 4:09.97. Smith, Plaza, and G. Weyant are all well on their way to scoring points at SECs, and they’ll add to an already very deep IM group.
Nicole Maier boosts this group after two straight appearances in the 400 IM ‘B’ final at NCAAs, placing 9th in 2023 (4:05.84) and 11th (4:06.01) last year.
DIVING: ★★
Florida will return two postseason divers from last year, including Camyla Monroy, the SEC champion in the platform and runner-up in both springboard events. Monroy competed in all three events at last year’s NCAAs, finishing seventh on the 1m springboard and scoring 12 points for the Gators. She finished 20th in the 3m springboard, and 40th in the platform event.
Also returning is US Olympic Trials platform finalist Casey Greenberg. Greenberg finished 26th at SECs in the 3m, 24th in the 1m, and 19th on the platform.
RELAYS: ★★★★
Note that the grading system doesn’t align perfectly for relays as double points.
Relay grading system:
- 5 star (★★★★★) – 31+ points per relay event
- 4 star (★★★★) – 22-30 relay points per event
- 3 star (★★★) – 12-21 relay points per event
- 2 star (★★) – 5-11 relay points per event
- 1 star (★) – 0-4 relay points per event
Florida returns 15/20 relay legs this year, losing Runnels as the backstroke leadoff for the 200 medley relay, and Ivey for all the others. Without Ivey, Runnels, and Nikonova this year, the Gators run into a bit of an issue for their 200 and 400 freestyle relays. They don’t have a huge depth of sprint freestylers to choose from like many other teams at the top of the rankings do, so they’ll have to do some Tetris-like shifting to figure out their best orders.
While it is cool to see a swimmer swim butterfly during a freestyle relay, Peoples’ leg was the slowest on the team, with a 22.25 split. She’ll need to get her own time down pretty significantly if they’re to repeat a 10th-place finish, as eight of the nine teams that finished ahead of them had four swimmers all swimming 21.99s or faster. Especially without their fastest split (21.33) in Isabel Ivey, they could be in some trouble. Addison Reese (22.66/49.64) and Julia Heimstead (22.41/48.54) could likely come into relay positions, as they and rising sophomore Carly Meeting are the only swimmers who come into the season with flat starts faster than 23 seconds in the 50.
The medley relays and the 800 freestyle relay will all still be in contention to place highly again, just with some minor shifting around. It’s possible we could see Bella Sims swim all five relays, leading off the 200 medley relay as the fastest incoming backstroker. Cronk will likely take Ivey’s spot anchoring the 400 medley relay, and Julie Brousseau can replace Ivey on the 800 freestyle relay. Of course, there are a million different ways the season could go down, but these seem like the most logical steps at this point.
Nicole Maier could also seamlessly slot in on the 400 and 800 free relays in place of Ivey.
Total Stars: 28.5/40
2024-2025 OUTLOOK
The sophomore class is undeniably the strongest class that the University of Florida has to offer right now, and they’re a big reason as to why the Gators jumped so high in the rankings last year. If they can continue to produce and progress the way they did last year, we could see them defend their top-three ranking.
With Camyla Monroy on the boards, Molly Mayne and Grace Rainey in breaststroke, Catie Choate and JoJo Ramey handling the backstrokes, Carly Meeting likely coming into an important sprint free role, Lainy Kruger and Julia Podkoscielny covering the 200 IM and a stroke 200 each, Zoe Dixon holding down the fort in the IMs, and Bella Sims swimming everything under the sun, this sophomore class runs deep.
Upperclassmen Emma Weyant, Micayla Cronk, and Olivia Peoples will all be integral to the success of the team next year, and if they can hit their best times at the right times, some points could be picked up where they were left last year. Each one of these swimmers will play an important part in at least one relay, and we could see another great year from all of them together this year.
The newest class of Gators also shows great potential to develop, with lots of incoming international, domestic, and transfer talent alike, the Gainesville appeal is real.
WOMEN’S 2024-25 COLLEGE PREVIEW INDEX
| RANK (2024) | TEAM | SPRINT FREE | DISTANCE FREE | BACK | BREAST | FLY | IM | DIVING | RELAY | TOTAL |
| 1 | Virginia Cavaliers | |||||||||
| 2 | Texas Longhorns | |||||||||
| 3 | Florida Gators | ★★★½ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★★ | 28.5/40 |
| 4 | Tennessee Volunteers | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★½ | ★ | ★★★★ | 26.5/40 |
| 5 | Stanford Cardinal | ★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★★★ | 29/40 |
| 6 | Louisville Cardinals | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ ½ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★★½ | 20/40 |
| 7 | Indiana Hoosiers | ★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★★ | ★★★ | ★★★ | 25/40 |
| 8 | USC Trojans | ★★★½ | ★★½ | ★★½ | ★★★½ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★★★★ | 22/40 |
| t-9 | NC State Wolfpack | ★★★ | ★★ ½ | ★★★★★ | ★ ½ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ ½ | 22.5/40 |
| t-9 | Ohio State Buckeyes | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ | ★★ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★★ | 20/40 |
| 11 | California Golden Bears | ★★½ | ★★ | ★★★★ | ★★ | ★★★½ | ★★★ | ★ | ★★★ | 21/40 |
| 12 | Michigan Wolverines | ★★★★ | ★★½ | ★ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★½ | ★★ | ★★★ | 20/40 |
Nicole Maier – 5th year transfer (Miami University) – was mentioned in earlier coverage. 4:05 400 IM, 4:39 500 Free, 47.7 100 free, (47.1 relay split), 1:43.9 200 free, 1:56 200 IM, 21.7 50 free relay split. Member Germany Olympic Team on 800 Meter Free Relay
See you’ve added her now in the article review here. Seemed worth mentioning, after all.
I’m incredibly disappointed that Bella Sims was not mentioned once in the breaststroke or diving section of this article about Bella Sims.
Lmao I was gonna say is this a Bella Sims prediction article?
SS real generous on the Sprint Freestyle ranking 👀
I think Florida lost Elise bauer too… NCAA qualifier. It’s also interesting that Pennington’s PB stands at 15:48.69. I hope she touches that. If she does, and Weyant also goes that time, we could see some serious damage on the NCAA 1650 level.
You could consider Julie for the 400 IM as well, her PB is a 4:38 LC.
Zavaros and Mattes are potential NCAA scorers I would think….
Interested to see how Bella will bounce back after a disastrous Trials. In the podcast she seems like a very level headed girl so I hope she can come back even stronger.
Given the podcast you mention, she appeared to cast blame at the Florida coaching staff for her disastrous trials. Not sure how that was received by said coaches.
Hope Bella figured over the summer that her destiny is hers to write. She needs to look inward for what happened at trials and go from there. Wish her the best, but until such time she takes accountability for her own actions and grows up – don’t think we will see anything more than just the normal from her.
It’s possible she was doing everything she was asked to do, and it clearly didn’t work. If I felt that I did what the coaching staff asked me to do and I got slowly, I wouldn’t be very happy.
I don’t blame the UF coaching staff. It’s pretty tough to make a 1:40/4:28 HS home schooled kid go faster. I said from the beginning I wonder if she’ll ever go faster again because not many females that fast in HS go faster in college.
It’s next to impossible to swim faster when your total time training goes down. College student athletes can train a total of 20ish hours per week. Her Sandpiper group did that many hours just in the pool, plus dry land and lifting added on top. And she is physically attending classes for the first time in years.
Any person saying that Bella swimming slower is a Florida coaching issue is in denial. It should not have surprised anyone.
it didn’t happen “at trials” so much as all year so I don’t know why people would be so quick to absolve the coaching staff of blame. Obviously something was not working…
I think Florida is going to slide down to 5th this year. Losing Ivey is a big loss that’s going to be hard to recover from. Texas/Stanford/Tennessee will fight it out for 2-4, Virginia easily winning again.
You don’t think getting back an NCAA A finalist (Zavaros), a Swiss Army knife freshman who goes 1:57 in the 200 free and 4:38 in the 400 IM long course, plus a super fast breaststroker who could level up the medley relays (a 1:07.1 LC is WAY faster than a 59 mid) can make up those points?
Mabel Zavaros gotta be on that Grant House plan. Is this like her 8th year of eligibility?
The medleys were 3rd and 4th, so there’s not much room for them to move up. Some A-finalists in the 4 IM should help them score some points but don’t replace an elite sprinter
That’s the thing though – Julie Brousseau can be an elite sprinter. Also, I think Julia Heimstead is about to pop off after being at Arizona for four years and still managing to qualify for NCs in different events each year. Botazzo is key. If she shows up big, UF is UVA’s biggest challenger.