Revisiting Recruit Rankings: Men’s High School Class of 2022

Each summer, college swimming fans look forward to recruiting – the lifeblood of any NCAA swim program. Since 2012, we’ve been ranking down the top NCAA prospects in the nation from each recruiting class. But sports are inherently unpredictable, and even the most sure-fire prospect can go awry or completely change their role over four years.

As we do each year, we’ll look back at the high school class of 2022, which just finished four years of college eligibility this spring.

First, a few notes:

• Most of the data we’re tracking here deals with NCAA scoring. Obviously, some swimmers are great assets for their teams in dual meets and conference competition without ever being national factors. While we don’t discount the impact of those types of swimmers, the difference in competition between various teams’ dual meet schedules and conference meets makes NCAA scoring the best “apples to apples” comparisons between swimmers.
• Relays are another point of contention, as a swimmer in a strong program has more opportunities for NCAA relays, though they also have more competition for those relay spots. We’ve left relay results out of the data below, except where specifically indicated. That, too, gives us a fairer comparison between athletes.
• We don’t rank diving recruits, but we have started to track individual diving scoring, which is helpful in determining how much of an impact a diver is likely to have on NCAA finish.
• We did our best to scour NCAA results over the past four-plus years, but it’s certainly possible we made a mistake in compiling our data. If you spot an error, please respectfully let us know in the comment section so we can update our work!

We only include domestic recruits in our recruit rankings, as it’s often harder to predict if and when an international recruit will join the NCAA, and which class they should be ranked with. However, we’ve gone back through and tallied up all individual scorers that roughly fit into this class – international and domestic.

REVISITING OUR TOP 20

Check out this post for our analysis of the top 20 recruits in the high school class of 2022. For the sake of being the most accurate in terms of gauging a swimmer’s pre-college ability, we’re using the re-ank of the class after their senior year of high school rather than the original ranks from their junior seasons.

Here’s a look at our top 20 recruits, plus how many individual points they scored at NCAAs in each of their four years:

Note: we’ve made an effort to put a dash (–) in a season in which an athlete didn’t compete (or was cut short due to injury) rather than “no invite”. If you see an error please let us know in the comments.

The Hits:

• Despite being an Honorable Mention recruit coming out of high school, Owen McDonald quickly established himself as the top American in this class, scoring a combined 73 points in two years at Arizona State and carrying that momentum into the back-half of his career at Indiana. McDonald scored 42 points last season, and although the new schedule forced him to choose between two of his best events this year, he still put up 30.5 for the Hoosiers to finish his career with 145.5. McDonald finished 5th, 3rd and 6th in the 200 back in his first three seasons of college, but had to drop the event from his program this year due to its conflict with the 200 IM. He matched his best-ever finish in the 200 IM, finishing as a close runner-up to Virginia freshman Maximus Williamson, and also placed 5th in the 100 back, setting new best times in both. He was also 19th in the 200 free.
• The top-ranked recruit in this class coming out of high school, Baylor Nelson finishes as the second-highest scorer with 93.5 points, hitting a career-high 33 in 2026 after transferring from Texas A&M to Texas in the offseason. Nelson was the runner-up in the 400 IM, took 3rd in the 200 IM, and missed the points in the 200 breast with a 21st-place finish. He set new best times in all three events during the season, though the 200 IM was only one where his PB came at NCAAs.
• NC State’s Quintin McCarty was the top scorer in this class this season, putting up 37 points for the Wolfpack to bring his career total to 53. McCarty was injured early in his freshman campaign and took a redshirt season, so he still has one more year of eligibility. After setting best times across the board at the ACC Championships, McCarty followed up by hitting another PB in the 50 free final at NCAAs, placing 4th in 18.47. He also took 6th in the 100 free and 9th in the 100 back while contributing to three NC State relays that finished 2nd, 3rd and 5th.
• Stanford’s Josh Zuchowski and Liam Custer, who committed to the Cardinal on the same day in 2021 and were ranked 2-3 in the class at the time, both scored for the first time last year with one point apiece, and then, as seniors, finally broke through and hit double-digit points. Zuchowski, fresh off a standout ACC Championship performance that saw him set best times across the board and win titles in the 400 IM, placed 10th in the 200 back in a new best time of 1:38.33 and added an 11th-place finish in the 400 IM at NCAAs to score 13 points. Custer set his first best time in the 1650 free in five years at the 2025 ACC Championships, clocking 14:36.44 to finish 2nd before adding seven seconds and placing 16th at NCAAs. This time, having locked in a qualifying spot after clocking 14:44.51 at the midseason SMU Invitational, Custer placed 5th at ACCs (14:49.21) and then dropped a time of 14:37.28 at NCAAs to place 7th and score 12 points.
• Another top-10 recruit that broke through this season was Tennessee’s Nick Simons, who scored in the 100 and 200 back as a freshman but hadn’t been back at NCAAs since, redshirting his sophomore season and then failing to earn an invite in the 2024-25 campaign. This season, he set a new best time of 1:38.21 in the 200 back during the NCAA prelims, earning a lane in the final where he ultimately finished 7th to score 12 points and bring his career total to 16. Having redshirted his sophomore season, Simons has entered the NCAA transfer portal as a graduate transfer.
• The third-highest scorer among ranked recruits is Florida’s Gio Linscheer, who has scored 87 of his 88 career points in the last three seasons. Linscheer scored 32 in his senior year, setting a new best time to place 5th in the 500 free (4:09.13), adding another 5th-place finish in the 1650 free, and also taking 13th in the 400 IM.
• Another standout among the recruits ranked 11th through 20th is Kentucky’s Levi Sandidge, who earned top-eight finishes in the 1650 free in three of his four NCAA appearances, only missing out as a sophomore in 2024. After setting a best time at the 2026 SEC Championships in February, clocking 14:30.04, Sandidge dropped a blistering time of 14:22.26 at NCAAs to snag 3rd place and score 16 points, bringing his career total to 40. The performance also ranks him #5 all-time in the mile and third-fastest among Americans.
• The only ranked recruit who scored for the first time in their senior year was Army’s Kohen Rankin, who placed 13th in the 100 breast (51.47) for four points. However, he was seeded for 13 points after coming in ranked 6th in the event. In his previous two NCAA appearances, he finished 28th and 29th in the 100 breast.

The Misses:

• This class included six swimmers who didn’t swim through their entire senior year of college, including Virginia’s Sebastien Sergile, who last competed at the CSCAA Dual Meet Challenge in November, and Michael Cotter, who transferred to UNC last summer but didn’t compete for the Tar Heels this year.
• As the #3-ranked recruit coming out of high school, Cotter has not competed in an NCAA Championship meet. An ACL injury notably disrupted his freshman year. The same can be said for #5 Carl Bloebaum and #6 Matthew Chai. Virginia Tech’s Bloebaum competed this season but didn’t earn an NCAA invite, while Cal’s Chai last raced collegiately at the SMU Last Chance Meet in February 2025.
• Six other top-20 recruits have never scored at NCAAs. Among that group, Stanford’s Zhier Fan and Virginia Tech’s Landon Gentry are the only two who qualified for the meet this season. Both qualified for three NCAA Championships out of their four seasons in college.

OTHER IMPACTFUL RECRUITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2022

Of course, not every contributor comes from our top 20 list. Some swimmers develop extremely well in college. Some swimmers slip under our radar, or don’t prove to be late bloomers once they hit the NCAA.

We dug through NCAA results to find the best American swimmers from this class to not appear on our top 20 list. Again, it’s not always easy to account for redshirt years, gap years or mistakes in an athlete’s listed class each season. So if we forgot anyone, please let us know in the comments.

Standouts:

• The clear standout from the unranked recruits is Jonny Kulow, who immediately took to the sprint training program at Arizona State under Herbie Behm and has thrived throughout his career as a Sun Devil. Despite being a 73-point scorer for his career, including a personal best 27 this past season after setting best times en route to 5th in the 100 free (40.76) and 6th in the 50 free (18.55), Kulow’s impact was felt most on the ASU relays. He was a member of 16 Sun Devil relay teams during his NCAA career, four per season, winning five national titles and earning eight additional 2nd or 3rd-place finishes. Kulow swam the 800 free relay for the first time at NCAAs this season, where the Sun Devils placed 8th, marking the worst relay finish of his career. Prior to that, his lowest showing came in the 200 free relay during his freshman year (5th).
• Steadily improving throughout his NCAA career, Michigan’s Tyler Ray didn’t earn an invite as a freshman, but scored four points as a sophomore, 12 as a junior, and then reached a new level this past season as a senior, scoring 30 points. Ray set a new personal best time of 43.32 in the prelims of the 100 fly, ranking him #6 all-time, and then followed up by clocking 43.62 in the final to place 5th. He also set back-to-back best times in the prelims (1:38.55) and final (1:38.47) of the 200 fly to place 3rd. Ray also delivered key splits on four Michigan relays that finished no worse than 7th.
• Breaking out and scoring points for the first time this season was Princeton’s Mitchell Schott, who was seeded to score at the 2025 NCAAs after some breakthrough swims at the Ivy League Championships, but he added a bit of time and missed out (taking 17th in the 200 fly). In 2026, however, he swept the Ivy League titles in the 200 free (1:31.52), 200 fly (1:39.05) and 200 IM (1:40.93), setting new best times in all three, and then followed up by delivering at NCAAs. He dropped another PB in the prelims of the 200 free (1:31.17) to make the final, where he finished 8th. A few days later, he took 7th in the 200 fly final to score a total of 23 points. Schott also set a new best time of 4:14.17 in the 500 free to place 20th.
• Similar to Schott, Delaware’s Matvei Namakonov, Notre Dame’s Marcus Gentry and Louisville’s Jackson Millard scored for the first time as seniors, as did Michigan’s Jack Wilkening.
• Namakonov set a personal best time in the heats of the 100 breast (50.49) to make the final, finishing 7th (50.83) for 12 points. He qualified for NCAAs for the first time last season, with his best finishing come in at 32nd in the 100 breast.
• Gentry, who sat out of the 2024-25 season after Notre Dame’s men’s team was suspended, put up 12 points this season after taking 7th in the 100 back, hitting a new best time of 44.07 in the prelims. He also set a 100 fly PB of 45.23 to take 23rd. His only other NCAA appearance came in 2024, when he placed 19th in the 100 back and 20th in the 200 back.
• Millard, who qualified as a sophomore but didn’t make the cut in his freshman or junior seasons, set a best time of 3:38.17 in the prelims of the 400 IM to place 9th and score the same number of points.
• Wilkening set a best time of 44.69 in the prelims of the 100 back to take 15th and score the first two points of his career. He was more impressive on Michigan’s relays, leading off the 400 medley relay in another new 100 back best of 43.98, becoming the 12th American under 44 seconds to lead the Wolverines to a 4th place finish. He also split 18.24 on the 200 free relay, 40.79 on the 400 free relay, and led off in a lifetime best 20.60 on the 200 medley relay.

INTERNATIONAL RECRUITS

Standouts:

• Josh Liendo had lofty expectations coming into his freshman year at Florida, and it’s safe to say he’s exceeded them and then some during his four years with the Gators. The Canadian wrapped up his NCAA career by sweeping his individual events for the second time at the championships, going three-for-three in both victories and personal best times in the 50 free (18.06), 100 free (39.91) and 100 fly (42.49), setting a new NCAA and U.S. Open Record in the latter. In the 100 fly prelims at NCAAs, his time of 42.54 broke Caeleb Dressel‘s all-time record and Florida program mark of 42.80, set in 2018, which Liendo had been chasing throughout his career. Liendo’s win in the 100 free gave him the career grand slam with four straight titles, and it also brought his individual tally up to nine national championships, tying Dressel for 3rd all-time among male swimmers, only trailing Pablo Morales (11) and John Naber (10). Liendo’s 231 career individual points are one of the highest totals we’ve seen since we started tracking this data, notably matching Gretchen Walsh‘s four-year total. Liendo was also clutch on Florida’s relays throughout his career, contributing to six winning relay teams to go along with three that finished 2nd and five more that finished 3rd. The other two NCAA relays in Liendo’s career were disqualifications due to false starts (neither from his takeover) that originally finished 1st (200 medley in 2025) and 2nd (400 medley in 2024).
• Hubert Kos joined Liendo in eclipsing the 200-point barrier for his career after scoring 57 points as a senior, following up on the 60 he scored last season. Kos matched Liendo’s total for the past two seasons (117), but was outscored 114-85 during their first two seasons of college. Kos, the Hungarian Olympic and world champion and now multi-time world record holder (SCM), didn’t win any individual NCAA titles during his two years at Arizona State, but has reeled off five in his two seasons at Texas. He swept the 100 back, 200 back and 200 IM last season, and then this year as a senior, successfully defended his backstroke titles, setting new all-time records in the 100 (42.61) and 200 back (1:34.13). Due to the new schedule, Kos opted to race the 100 fly in 2026 as his third event, dropping the 200 IM. The NCAA Record coming into the meet in the 100 fly: 42.80. Coming into the final, it stood at 42.54, set by Liendo in the prelims. In the final, Kos matched that time in 42.54, but it wasn’t enough for the title, with Liendo re-lowering it to 42.49.
• Tennessee’s Gui Caribe and Indiana’s Zalan Sarkany also had standout careers, cracking the 100-point barrier for their career with identical 39-point totals as seniors.
• Caribe, a reliable sprinter for the Vols throughout his career, scored a career-best 41 points last season, highlighted by two 3rd-place finishes in the 50 and 100 free, and followed up by moving to 2nd in the 50 free this year while holding his place at 3rd in the 100 free. He dropped two spots in the 100 fly, going from 9th in 2025 to 11th in 2026, which is why he scored two fewer points than last year. A key relay leg for Tennessee all four years, the Brazilian contributed to two national title-winning relays last season and notably has produced multiple sub-18 50 free splits.
• Sarkany won back-to-back national titles in the 1650 free in 2024 and 2025, the first with Arizona State and the second with Indiana, and this past season, he was the runner-up in an epic race with Florida freshman Ahmed Jaouadi, producing the third-fastest swim ever in 14:12.20. Sarkany also set lifetime bests in the 500 free (4:07.95) and 400 IM (3:38.54) to place 4th and 10th, respectively, and earn his career-best point total.
• Also scoring double-digit points and recording the highest tallies of their careers were Georgia’s Ruard van Renen, Ohio State’s Tristan Jankovics and Tomas Navikonis, and Indiana’s Kai van Westering.
• van Renen set a new lifetime best of 43.41 in the prelims of the 100 back before taking 2nd in the final, and he also placed 6th in the 200 back and 14th in the 100 fly for 33 points to bring his career total up to 86.
• Jankovics was 3rd in the 400 IM and 12th in the 200 IM for 21 points, slightly more than the 18 he scored last season when he was 2nd in the 400 IM and 16th in the 200 IM. His Buckeye teammate Navikonis recorded a breakthrough 4th-place finish in the 200 free to score 15 points after he came in with just two for his career (earned when he placed 15th in the 200 free last season).
• van Westering earned a career-best 4th-place finish in the 200 back this season, while adding a 14th-place finish in the 100 back, to score 18 points, bringing his career total to 35. Last year, he was 10th in the 200 back and 11th in the 100 back.
• Other noteworthy performers this year were Missouri’s Jan Zubik, Louisville’s Guy Brooks and Florida’s Eric Brown, who all scored for the first time as seniors. All three men had qualified individually in each of the past four seasons but hadn’t hit the points.

DIVING RECRUITS

Standouts:

• LSU’s Carson Paul leads all divers in this class with 53 points across four NCAA Championship appearances. He recorded a career-best 4th-place finish on platform this season, scoring 15 points, just shy of his lifetime best total of 18, set in 2024 when he scored on both platform and 3-meter.
• Texas’ Nick Harris withdrew after his opening dive of the 1-meter event at NCAAs this year, but rebounded to take 6th on 3-meter and score 13 points for the Longhorns. His best performance came as a freshman in 2023, when he was 7th on 1-meter and 10th on 3-meter.
• Indiana’s Maxwell Weinrich scored 19 points in back-to-back seasons in 2024 and 2025, but only mustered four in his senior year after taking 13th on platform. His career-best finish came in 2024 when he was the platform runner-up.
• Mizzou’s Collier Dyer, Utah’s Elias Petersen, USC’s Laurent Gosselin-Paradis and Cal’s Joshua Thai all had career-best performances as seniors, with Dyer leading the way after winning the 1-meter title for 20 points after scoring a combined 13 in his first three seasons. Petersen also made the 1-meter (7th) and scored on 3-meter (12th), while Gosselin-Paradis made the platform final (7th) and scored on 3-meter (16th) and Thai earned a 6th-place finish on platform. Of that four, Thai was the only diver to score in all four seasons.

Other ‘Seniors’ This Season

There were six scoring competitors at the 2026 Men’s NCAA Championships who were classified as seniors but weren’t members of this high school class.

• Virginia swimmer Jack Aikins and Miami (FL) diver Mohamed Farouk were both members of the high school class of 2021, but both took redshirt seasons (Aikins in 2023-24 and Farouk in 2024-25). Aikins scored 11 points this season, bringing his career total to 20, while Farouk’s seven points brought his career tally to 32.
• USC diver Moritz Wesemann slipped through the cracks last year—we missed including him in our retrospectives, as it was his first year in the NCAA, but he was listed as a senior. The German was listed as a senior again this year, his last season of eligibility, and he scored 30 points with a pair of top-five finishes. That gives him 53 points in two seasons after putting up 23 last season.
• Three international swimmers were listed as seniors, indicating this is likely their only season of eligibility, though it was their first season in the NCAA: Florida’s Koen de Groot and Charlie Hutchison, and Alabama’s Sean Niewold. For the purpose of these articles, these three will be included in our upcoming article on the 2025-26 freshman class.

ALL INDIVIDUAL SCORERS IN THE CLASS

ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKS