2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships
- March 19-22, 2025
- Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center — Federal Way, Washington
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Start Times: Prelims: 10 AM ׀ Finals: 6 PM (Pacific Daylight Time)
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Day 2 Prelims Schedule
- 500 free
- 200 IM
- 50 free
Thursday’s prelims session will kick off the first of the individual events. Scheduled for the morning is the 500 free, 200 IM, and 50 free.
The 500 free looks to be a battle to get under 4:30. Jillian Cox of Texas is the top seed (4:30.68) while #2 seed Bella Sims of Florida is the defending champion. Sims notably did not swim the event at SECs, opting for the 200 IM instead.
Aurora Roghair for Stanford has been on fire this season and is the #3 seed while Katie Grimes of Virginia will make her NCAA Championship debut and swam a 4:32.69 to win the event at ACCs.
Torri Huske and Alex Walsh look set up for a showdown in the 200 IM. Huske is the top seed with a 1:51.46 and returns to NCAAs after taking an Olympic Redshirt last season. Walsh will look to defend her title and the two went 2-3 at NCAAs back in 2023, finishing behind Kate Douglass who swam to an NCAA record in her win. Walsh is entered with a 1:51.80.
The #3 seed Emma Sticklen has greatly improved her 200 IM this season and is entered with a 1:52.42. Sticklen had never been under 1:54 prior to this year.
The 50 free will conclude the session as NCAA record holder Gretchen Walsh is the top seed with a 20.60. Her NCAA record is a 20.37 that she swam last year at NCAAs. She swam a 20.41 in prelims last year breaking her record from ACCs so there is record watch this morning as well. She already fired off the #2 fly split all-time last night as Virginia broke the NCAA record in the 200 medley relay.
Julia Dennis of Louisville made history last year as one of three women for the Cardinals in the ‘A’ final and is the #2 seed entering the meet this year with a 21.08 from ACCs. She entered the season with a lifetime best of a 21.60 and had a big split last night with a 20.49 which bodes well for today. Tennessee’s Camille Spink has been as fast as 21.23 this season and looks to make the final this year after finishing 24th a year ago.
is there a heat sheet link for this morning?
In other news – Kirsty Coventry was just elected as IOC president. First woman, first African to hold the position. Yay!
HUGE am for the TN LADY VOLS! They can turn around the disastrous start by putting up 3 A finals and 3 B finals. Spink will be great in the 50 and 100 free races. She was 24th last year, so an A final makes it a great year of improvement.
Going to put this here because I believe this is good news for swimming
“Kirsty Coventry elected new IOC president”
If we’re going off last night, I think we might need to count Bella out of the 500 title, she and Weyant died really hard last night. She seems to really be taking let Bella sprint seriously. That leaves the door open for Cox, but if Texas isn’t on, then this race is going to be much more wide open. Roghair and Stege can take advantage of that.
Don’t forget about Grimes. PB of 4:28 is the fastest in the field, she could definitely pull it off
Not sure Stege has the speed of the frontrunners but if it’s a tight race who knows
True, but when she’s on, she’s got a killer backhalf, so we’ll see. It’ll be a good race no matter what.
Cox trains with the men’s team, so we haven’t learned anything about her taper yet
I think the Eastern teams were still getting used to the different time zone last night — esp for the 10:30 pm EDT swim. (Doesn’t seem to have affected the earlier swim much — time adds weren’t substantial, except for Tennessee.) On paper, that should have been a faster final. Virginia was slower than at last year’s NCAAs, and still moved up two spots. Stanford, USC, and Cal were better than their seed times in the 800 free relay. Of the top Eastern Time 800 FR teams, Florida was right on it, Michigan and Tennessee missed pretty substantially.
The prelims being at 1 ET *might* be more comfortable for them as they continue to adjust.
I love looking back at past swimming results on SwimCloud – especially NCAAs – and if there’s anything I’ve learned, you can’t always rely on the 800 Free Relay as an indication to how the swimmers are going to do. Many swimmers have had a bad swim on that relay only to rebound and have a great meet
Care to share some names?
i hope youre right but bella and emma were both a second and half faster last year…
as a fan of bella im a bit frustrated because she was supposed to bounce back this year — if shes struggling with a double in the small pool, im nervous shell end up being locked out of three consecutive international teams…
I think we all know that swimming a 50 back then a 200 free 45-60 mins later wasn’t the problem. But we will see.
looking back at the splits from the 800 relay – what a great team effort from Stanford with the slowest leg only being a second slower than their fastest. don’t sleep on lillie and kayla this week!
I pray Alex thrashes the other girls
Chill there killer. This is swimming, not the UFC.
it’s definitely gonna be a race with Torri but I hope Alex ends up on top
I hope that Torri Huske returns to her Walsh-slaying ways, much like she did in Paris.
ala Kazushi Sakuraba (aka the Gracie Hunter)
Sims and Weyant (1:42.5 and 1:44.4 respectively) did not seem to be on in their 200 splits. Bella leading off a second slower than last year, and has been 1:39.5 on a flying start, and Weyant seemingly dying at the end of that 200. A chance for Roghair and Stege to move up in the 500