2025 NCAA DIII Swimming and Diving Championships
- March 19-22, 2025
- Location: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, NC
- Times: Prelims 10:00 AM / Finals 6:00 PM (ET)
- Defending Champs: Kenyon women (1x) & Emory men (3x)
- Psych Sheet
- Live Streaming on NCAA.com
- Live Results
- “NCAA DIII Championships” on Meet Mobile
- Recaps
One night after repeating as the 200 IM NCAA DIII champion, Williams senior Sophia Verkleeren completed the IM sweep in record-setting fashion. She torched the DIII record in the 400 IM, taking down fellow Eph Caroline Wilson’s mark of 4:13.14, which had stood for 13 years. Verkleeren swam 4:11.23, taking 1.91 seconds off Wilson’s time.
This is Verkleeren’s second lifetime best of the day. After coming into the meet with a lifetime best of 4:16.77 from this season’s Gompei Invitational, Verkleeren clocked 4:15.75 to pace the field into the final. She dropped 5.54 seconds over the course of the day.
Verkleeren brought a lifetime best of 4:17.24 from last year’s NESCAC Championships into this season. Though she raced the 400 IM at her conference championships last year, she did not race it at the 2024 NCAA Championships. Instead, the 2023 400 IM bronze medalist chose to focus on the 200 IM and 100/200 backstroke.
Split Comparison
| Verkleeren — 2025 NCAA DIII Championships | Wilson — 2012 NCAA DIII Championships | |
| Fly | 57.06 | 56.50 |
| Back | 1:59.75 (1:02.69) | 2:00.58 (1:04.08) |
| Breast | 3:10.80 (1:11.05) | 3:14.07 (1:13.49) |
| Free | 4:11.23 (1:00.43) | 4:13.14 (59.07) |
Verkleeren led the entire race, but was about a half-second off record pace through the butterfly leg. A 1:02.69 100 backstroke split helped her move ahead of Wilson’s mark as she turned at the halfway point in 1:59.75, now .83 seconds ahead of record pace.
She continued to outsplit Wilson with a 1:11.05 100 breaststroke. That gave her enough space to stay ahead of Wilson out-splitting her by over a second on the freestyle leg, 59.07 to 1:00.43 and touch well ahead of the record.
Verkleeren is a multi-time NCAA DIII Champion but this marks her first individual DIII record. When asked after the race what made the difference for her in this swim, she credited the fact that this is her final NCAA Championships and she’s trying to take it all in and enjoy everything, along with the support from the Williams community.
Verklereen is two-for-two in her individual events at the 2025 NCAA Championships. She’ll go for a hat trick in the 200 backstroke.
Absolute legend.
Go Ephs!!!
Congrats !!!!! Awesome.