#7 Lily Christianson, Junior National Champion, Commits to NC State (2024)

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Lily Christianson, the #7 recruit in the high school class of 2024, has verbally committed to NC State University.

Christianson is the defending US Junior National Champion in the 50 meter free and a member of the USA Swimming Junior National Team.

Entering her junior season, she is a two-time defending Indiana High School state champion in the 50 yard freestyle. That gives her the chance to become just the second girl to ever four-peat in Indiana in the 50 free, and 14th girl in any event. She is the Indiana state high school record holder in the 50 yard free, and is Penn High School’s first state champion in girls swimming since Bethany Galat – the 2017 and 2018 World Championships silver medalist in the 200 breaststroke.

Christianson was the #1-ranked 50 yard freestyle on NISCA’s High School All-America lists in 2022 as well.

Best Times in Yards/LCM:

SCY LCM
50 free 22.14 25.4
100 free 48.57 55.48
200 free 1:49.34 2:03.68
100 back 54.12 1:03.88
100 breast 1:01.58 1:11.69
100 fly 54.02 1:02.61
200 IM 2:00.01 2:16.93

Christianson’s clear best events are the 50 and 100 freestyles. Those are events where NC State has a huge reputation. Though their women haven’t been quite as good as their men, they scored 84 ACC points in the 50 free and 67 points in the 100 free at last year’s ACC Championship meet, which ranked them 2nd behind only the champions Virginia across those two events. That includes Katharine Berkoff, who finished 3rd at the NCAA Championships.

What’s not quite clear yet for Christianson’s future is what her third event will be at the NCAA level. That’s because she has good, but not great, tertiary times in the 100 back, 100 breast, 100 fly, and, not coincidentally, the 200 IM.

NC State had a late-break relative to some of their rivals (namely Virginia) in the class of 2024, but in the last week, they have scored a pair of top 10 commitment announcements to open the class. Besides Christianson, on Saturday, the #6 recruit in the class Erika Pelaez announced her commitment.

Christianson lives in Osceola, Indiana and trains with Irish Aquatics in South Bend, home of another ACC program, Notre Dame. Christianson is a two-time USA Swimming Scholastic All-American.

If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].

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Swimgeek
1 year ago

The UVA-NCST battles are going to continue to be epic. ACC looking strong

Cousin Eddie
1 year ago

Nice couple of pick ups for NC State! Go Pack!! Congrats to all the recruits committing places!

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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