2026 UAA Swimming & Diving Championships
- Dates: Wednesday, February 11 – Saturday, February 14
- Location: Ratner Athletic Center, Chicago IL
- Defending Champions:
- Women: Emory (26x)
- Men: Emory (26x)
- Teams: Brandeis, CMU, CWRU, Chicago, Emory, NYU, Rochester, WashU
- Championship Central
- Full Results
The NYU women made history at the University Athletic Association Championships (UAA) last weekend. Led by two-time NCAA Division III Swimmer of the Year Kaley McIntyre, the Violets clinched a program first team conference title to unseat Emory for the first time since 1999.
The Emory men were pushed from start to finish by NYU and Chicago, but ultimately came out on top to take home their 27th straight conference title.
Women’s Recap
NYU senior Kaley McIntyre was perfect in her events, completing the 50-100-200 freestyle sweep for the third year in a row and contributing key legs to the winning 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, and 400 medley relays.
McIntyre’s meet was highlighted by a new Division III national record in the 200 freestyle. On the third night of the meet, she scorched 1:44.74 to crack Kendra Stern’s record from 2011 (1:44.82). McIntyre is a three-time national champion in this event and has slashed nearly 10 seconds from her best time before college, 1:54.25 from her senior year in high school.
McIntyre led a 1-2-3 finish for NYU in the 50 free (22.29) and 100 free (48.30). The podiums were identical in both events, rounded out by first-year Maeve O’Donnell (23.24, 50.49) and junior Lian Jeong Engle (23.26, 50.80).
The NYU women kicked off their meet with a win in the 800 freestyle relay. Nicole Ranile (1:50.05), Aanya Wala (1:50.58), Llew Ladomirak (1:47.60), and McIntyre (1:44.83) combined to miss their own national record from last season by 0.04 seconds (7:13.06).
On day two, Jeong Engle (23.61), O’Donnell (22.75), Ladomirak (22.61), and McIntyre (21.69) won the 200 freestyle relay (1:30.66). Ladomirak went on to win her first individual conference title in the 500 free (4:54.08) later in the session.
Emory sophomore Allison Greenway won the 200 IM (2:01.01), also her first conference title.
Chicago junior Lilia Atanda won 1-meter diving (485.45). She placed 2nd in 2025.
The Violets closed the session with another relay win in the 400 medley (3:41.87), and leading the Eagles 708.5 points to 678.5. O’Donnell (55.86), Sammy Wong (1:04.02), Ranile (54.67), and McIntyre (47.32) finished over a second ahead of Chicago.
NYU held their lead through all of day three despite not winning any of the stroke 100s. Chicago first-year Sophia Xu upset defending 100 fly champion Nicole Ranile (54.77). Emory junior Katie Cohen successfully defended her title in the 100 breast (1:02.03) while her senior teammate Penny Celtnieks won her first in the 100 back (54.58).
Besides McIntyre’s win in the 200 free, NYU’s other individual title on day three was by Bethany Spangler in the 400 IM (4:23.09).
The Eagles won the 200 medley relay to close the session (1:40.99), fielding Celtnieks (25.70), Cohen (28.44), Greenway (24.55), and Ava Kennedy (22.30). They ended the session just 24 points behind NYU.
Emory made a huge surge on day four. First, Meredith Liu broke 17 minutes for the first time in the 1650 free (16:59.77) for her first individual conference title. CMU got their sole event win from senior Savannah Xu in the 200 back (1:59.60) who won a narrow race over a 2-3-4-5-6 finish from Emory swimmers. After that event, the Eagles held their largest point lead of the meet.
The gap started to close after the 100 free. Cohen captured her third straight title in the 200 breast (2:15.96), but NYU outscored Emory in the event with six swimmers in the final versus two.
Defending national and UAA champion Nicole Ranile won the 200 fly and was the only swimmer to break two minutes (1:59.94). Again, NYU had more scoring athletes than Emory (four to two).
Lilia Atanda completed a sweep of the boards, scoring 507.60 in 3-meter.
Heading into the final event, Emory led NYU by a single point in the overall standings. In the first heat of the 400 free relay, NYU’s B relay defeated Emory’s team by just 0.33 seconds. That gave the Violets a five point lead and Emory one last chance to snatch victory in the A final.
NYU’s squad of Jeong Engle (51.10), Ladomirak (50.06), Andrea Wu (51.53), and McIntyre (47.73) dominated the final heat by over four seconds (3:20.42) and cemented their first team conference title in program history.
Final Standings
- NYU – 1900
- Emory – 1885
- Chicago – 1196.5
- WashU – 1127
- CMU – 964.5
- CWRU – 673.5
- Rochester – 555.5
- Brandeis – 349
Major Awards
- Swimmer of the Year – Kaley McIntyre (NYU)
- Rookie of the Year – Llew Ladomirak (NYU)
- Diver of the Year – Lilia Atanda (Chicago)
- Coaching Staff of the Year – NYU
- Diving Coaching Staff of the Year – Chicago
Men’s Recap
Emory only won two events in the entire meet, but thanks to their tremendous depth still secured their 27th straight conference title.
Solomon Berkenwald swept the boards for the Eagles for the second year in a row and was recognized as Diver of the Year. He was the only individual event champion from Emory.
A pair of Chicago swimmers shared the Swimmer of the Year award. Sophomore John Butler and junior Cooper Costello won three individual events each and teamed up on three championship relays. They also contributed to a runner-up relay finish.
Costello won the 100 fly (46.39), 200 fly (1:42.91), and 200 IM (1:46.69) at this year’s championships. This was his third year in a row sweeping the butterfly events. His 200 fly performance was a new personal best and makes him the second swimmer ever to break 1:43 in the event, after national record holder Justin Finkel. Costello is the national record holder in the 100 fly and the only Division III swimmer to break 46 seconds.
Butler took on the 50 free (19.72), 100 free (43.16), and 200 free (1:35.66), setting personal bests in the shorter two distances. Before this season, he hadn’t broken the 20 second or 44 second barrier yet.
Chicago won three relays. In the 800 free relay, Alex Schwartz (1:38.06), Misha Kojanov (1:38.64), Costello (1:36.20), and Butler (1:35.14) finished over two seconds ahead of the field (6:28.04). Schwartz, Costello, and Butler were all on the relay that won the national title last season and tied the national record.
The 400 medley team of David Gutin (49.68), Ethan Taylor (53.15), Costello (45.63), and Butler (42.39) combined for the win by over a second (3:10.85).
To close out the meet, Costello (43.90), Igor Benderskii (43.67), Ryan-Alexander Lobo (44.50), and Butler (42.31) finished less than two-tenths back of their national-winning time last season (2:54.38). Costello and Butler were also on that relay.
NYU picked up the sprint relay wins. In the 200 free relay, Pierce Downs (20.19), Teddy Cross (19.38), Stone Miller (20.09), and Greg Wehbe (19.31) finished first, breaking the UAA Record set by Chicago in 2025 by nearly a second (1:18.97). Chicago was also under their old record, highlighted by a 19.16 split from Butler.
The 200 medley saw the team of Teddy McQuaid (21.91), Sean Li (24.29), Cross (20.98), and Wehbe (19.44) break another UAA record (1:26.62), set by Emory in 2024.
Two other athletes won multiple events and both are in their first year of college. WashU’s Parker Chan took on the longest events, finishing first in the 500 free in UAA record fashion (4:23.98) and the 1650 free (15:24.33). Ethan Taylor swept the breaststroke events, upsetting defending champion Henri Bonnault in the 100 breast (53.71) and setting a new personal best in the 200 breast (1:57.25).
A pair of NYU swimmers finished 1-2 in both backstroke events. Teddy McQuaid won the 100 back (46.67), followed by graduate student Teddy Cross (47.08). Cross, who spent two seasons at UVA, posted a dominant 1:42.74 effort in the 200 back to get within four-tenths of Derek Maas’ record set last year. Maas also transferred to NYU from a D1 school (Alabama).
Final Standings
- Emory – 1753.5
- NYU – 1626
- Chicago – 1399
- WashU – 1067
- CMU – 1048.5
- CWRU – 784
- Rochester – 520
- Brandeis – 345
Major Awards
- Swimmer of the Year – John Butler (Chicago)/Cooper Costello (Chicago)
- Rookie of the Year – Parker Chan (WashU)
- Diver of the Year – Solomon Berkenwald (Emory)
- Coaching Staff of the Year – Chicago/Emory
- Diving Coaching Staff of the Year – Emory
why did it take so long for this article to show up in swim swam. NYU women winning the UAA and beating Emory is pretty big news. An article on Denison and Kenton’s conference was posted the next day
If you would like for us to AI our entire website and get every meet recap up 10 minutes after it is finished, we can do that.
But in the meantime, we’re humans. There are lots of swim meets going on. We don’t have unlimited resources, partially because we make every story on this website free to access.
If you would like to make a donation to hire more writers, I’m happy to send you my Venmo.
Swimming people really are miserable, aren’t they?
I don’t know how you keep doing it, Braden. I would have quit a long time ago.
This is the most D3-coded comment that I have ever read.
Jim must have been sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for swimswam to tell him whether his team won or not.
Unfortunately this is the ugly side of the sport. From my own experience trying to do more than 3 meets at a time especially at the same time is exhausting. Believe me I love covering a lot of meets but a person can only do so much at a time before getting overwhelmed. This is the first time for me since I got involved in this side of the sport where I just couldn’t keep up with results there were 7 meets going on at the exact same time I was trying to cover and I couldn’t get all of it. I’m never doing that much again.
Thing is I’m trying to get 2 D3 swimmers on for a interview… Read more »
Which swimmers?
Max and Marrich out of bates
where can I read what you cover/get your interviews?
2 other NESCAC performances that should be highlighted. Sophomore Carrick Shea of Conn College won the 2 breast in 1:55.12, now 5th all time in D3 history as well as the favorite next month. The other is Max Cory going 42.92. Only .04 off his own record. He’s going to rebreak it next month at NCAAs. The Men’s 100 free is crazy this year as 5 guys are 43.16 or faster this season and realistically all of them could break the record next month.
Chicago has to drop the stringent academic requirements if they want to beat Emory and NYU.
Are you implying that Emory and NYU don’t have stringent academic standards? The UAA is an amazing conference with some outstanding student athletes! Every school faces different challenges, and the academic standards are high for all of the schools.
More so for UChicago
Also that was a delusional take UChicago is doing just fine. The depth of the UAA is just insane basically what NCAAs look like but without the final taper.
I know that Chicago is doing just fine. Jason has done amazing things since taking the helm. Turns out that nobody understands sarcasm.