Sophie Yendell Talks Becoming Pitt’s First Female All-American Swimmer Since 1986

2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

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Sophie Yendell made history for the Pittsburgh Panthers on Thursday, becoming the team’s first All-American swimmer since 1986. Yendell swam the 5th fastest time of the morning in the 50 free with a 21.54 before finishing 5th in the final in a 21.66. Pitt also had all five relays qualify for the first time in school history.

To put into perspective how long it has been since Pitt had an ‘A’ finalist at the NCAA level, head coach Chase Kreitler was not even born yet. Kreitler was born in 1987. The team’s sprint coach Gideon Louw was also born in 1987.

Yendell has been with the team since Kreitler arrived at Pitt in 2022 after spending time at Cal as an assistant. During the 2022-2023 campaign in Kreitler’s first season, Yendell was one of only two individual NCAA qualifiers in the pool for the Panthers and the team scored zero points that year. This year, the team has doubled its individual qualifiers with four individual women making it in 2025.

“Having ten girls here has been amazing. It is just more team bonding, making bracelets, playing cards. It is a completely different experience being here with ten girls and it is great. The team has worked so hard to be in this place,” Yendell said. 

Yendell has been close to scoring the last few years but finally had her breakthrough. In 2023, she finished 18th in the 50 free, and in 2024 she was 17th in the 100 fly. 

“That was really gutting for me. I didn’t know if I wanted to take my fifth year but it definitely was an amazing experience to come fifth. Coming from just missing out on finaling. Even today in the 100 fly I was 9th but last time I was 17th so I will take 9th and I am just happy to get points on the board for the team,” Yendell said. 

Head Coach Chase Kreitler also expressed the excitement of the 50 free and making the ‘A’ final, “Last year to be 17th in the hundred fly definitely stung, and this was one of those kind of special breakthrough moments where it all came together and we were just super proud of her and and I think it’s kind of a representation, not just of her but of the whole women’s team and kind of how far they’ve come.”

The women’s team has seen growth over the last three seasons as a whole. In addition to doubling the individual NCAA qualifiers in the pool, the team has made progress in the ACC. In 2022, the year prior to Kreitler arriving, the team finished 11th out of 12 teams at ACCs. This season, even with the additions of Cal, Stanford, and SMU, the women finished 8th out of 15 teams. 

“When I built this new staff, I wanted to instill in the student athletes that anything that they wanted to do in the sports of swimming or diving would be possible at Pitt. We had that mindset from the very beginning and how we’ve tried to set up the program. We operate as if we are already a top ten, top five program,” Kreitler said.

Kreitler has seen progression in many ways over his few years with the program. The 800 freestyle relay has gone from 7:21 in his first season, 7:12 last season, to a 7:03 this season. The 400 medley has seen substantial progression as well, going from a 3:36 in Kreitler’s first season to a 3:35 last year and now a 3:31. The school also made history this season as it qualified all five relays at NCAAs for the first time in program history. Culture was one way the program was able to improve together.

“We really have put a lot of focus on making changes in the culture to make it a place where people can accomplish their goals and that everybody’s kind of moving in the same direction and has the same vision. That [vision] ultimately is just to be the absolute best we could be,” Kreitler said.

Kreitler continued, “It’s been three years of pushing forward for this, with culture and workouts, and so that’s why these sports are so special, right? Because of all the stuff that you have to put into it, and when you finally do you have those breakthrough moments it’s just incredible.”

Yendell also spoke of the culture change under Kreitler saying the culture was “very different” before Kreitler arrived. The coaching staff looks much different even this season as Samantha Pitter was hired as the head coach at Miami (Ohio), while assistant coaches Roman Willets (stepping away from coaching), Kevin Arakaki (Louisville assistant) and Kelsey Reott (Princeton assistant) also moved on. Even with the coaching changes, Yendell said it has been consistent under Kreitler with the staff caring about the athletes as “people first.”

Pitt fifth year Sophie Yendell became the teams first All-American since 1986 last night finishing 5th in the 50 free pic.twitter.com/hhzBf7aSWN

— SwimSwam (@swimswamnews) March 21, 2025