USA Swimming Futures Championships – Justin
- July 23-26, 2025
- Northwest ISD Aquatic Center, Justin, TX
- LCM (50 meters)
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheet
- Post Session Results
- Live Results expected to be on Meet Mobile
A pair of 15-year-old girls picked up wins on day 2 of the Justin Futures Championships, the smallest of the five sites around the country, with both Brooke Johnson from Lakeside Aquatic Club and Juliana Cavalcanti from Sporting Jax Aquatic Club in Florida posting new lifetime bests.
In the opening event of the final, the girls’ 100 free, Johnson swam 58.42 to outpace matching 59.00s from Ivette Ladrow and Marin Clem. Johnson’s previous best time in the event was a 58.64 done at a Texas Senior Circuit meet in early June. She has now dropped half-a-second in total this summer.
In the very next girls’ race, Juli Cavalcanti won the girls’ 400 IM in 4:58.05. She was already qualified for Summer Juniors in this event thanks to softened standards this year, but that time was a 1.3 second drop that will improve her seed for the season-ending championship meet.
She used an aggressive front-half, opening the race in 2:23.44, about four seconds ahead of Elise Nguyen. Nguyen clawed back a lot of that lead even in the first 50 of the breaststroke, but ultimately Cavalcanti had done enough early in the race to win.
Cavalcanti represented the U.S. at the international Gymnasiade Meet in Serbia in April.
The girls’ meet is dominated by 18-and-unders this week, unlike the boys’ side which had quite a few adult winners. That includes Luke Barr, who added a 100 backstroke victory to his 100 breaststroke victory on Wednesday.
Barr, who just wrapped his collegiate career at Indiana, is pretty uniquely versatile for a breaststroker. His winning time on Thursday in the 100 back missed a best time by just .06 seconds.
The top-finishing junior in that race was Nate Thomas from River City Aquatics in Missouri, who was 2nd in 56.80.
Peter Horton, a key relay contributor at TCU but here representing the Houston Bridge Bats, won the boys’ 100 free in 50.79. He did most of the work in the front-half of the race.
He beat out Wednesday’s 200 free winner Micah Tennison, who finished 2nd in another best time of 51.07. That improves upon his 51.70 from early June. 16-year-old Ty Thomas swam a best time of 51.40 for 3rd place, which leaves him just a few tenths outside of the all-time age group top 100 in the U.S.
The rest of the boys’ races on Thursday were also won by adults. Georgia Tech’s Lukas Vetkoetter, one of just 14 swimmers to survive a big roster reduction there, won the 400 IM in 4:26.79 ahead of his 16-year-old Texas Ford teammate Brendan Hunt (4:31.91). While Vetkoetter has been 4:23, that was a five second improvement for Hunt and marks his first Summer Juniors time standard.
Other Day 2 Winners and Highlights:
- Kelsey Healy gave the King Marlin Swim Club of Oklahoma their second winner of the week when she topped the 100 backstroke field. That is a half-second improvement for the University of Kansas signee.
- Gwyneth Chen of the Houston Bridge Bats was 2nd in 1:04.38. That shaves .07 seconds off her lifetime best and ranks her 23rd among American 15-year-olds this season.
- Kailey Kennedy was the lone 19+ winner on the girls’ side on Thursday. She finished 1st in the girls’ 50 fly in 27.86. As a freshman last season, she swam on A&M’s 200 free relay at the NCAA Championships.
- 14-year-old Araiya Ferron from Nitro Swimming was 2nd in 28.19.
- Elise Nguyen split 2:07.69, the fastest of the field, to anchor Nitro swimming to a win in the 800 free relay. Also on that relay was Leilani Ancheta, Giana Sitter, and Charissa Higgs. Nguyen left the block about seven-tenths of a second behind Pikes Peak before pulling away for the win.
