The Morning/Evening Relay Dichotomy Is Real, And Cal’s Taper Is Scary (Day 1 Finals Overreactions)

2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2026
• McAuley Aquatic Center, Atlanta, GA
• Defending Champions: Virginia (5x)
• Championship Central
• Preview Index
• Psych Sheet
• Live Stream
• Live Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 1
  • Finals: Day 1

Day 1 gave us our first experience of the new NCAA format, and among other changes there are five races which are more radically different to the previous format than any other – the relays.

Previously all heats were held in the evening, which itself was a change from the pre-COVID format of prelims and finals, but now only the fastest heat is in the evening session. That doesn’t allow teams to select their lineup based on performances of others in the morning, as team lineups are due at the same time regardless of the session you are swimming in, but it does provide an advantage to the eight teams in the fastest heat.

The biggest part of that advantage seems to be swimming in the evening, typically when an athlete would be aiming to swim fastest. A fast morning swim is not an impossibility, nor necessarily an unexpected occurrence, but in a relay where you are counting on all four legs to hit it seems to add another layer of toil.

That could be seen tonight. After just five of 29 teams went faster than their seed time across the two relays this morning, four in the 200 medley relay and one in the 800 free relay, 13 of the 16 teams who swam tonight did (including Cal who were DQed, but were 0.24 seconds faster).

Breaking it down per event, 25% of the morning swims in the 200 medley relay and 7% of the morning swims in the 800 free relay were season bests – by comparison, 88% of the evening swims in the 200 medley and 75% of the evening swims in the 800 free relay were. That is a significant difference, and one which probably can’t be explained by the makeup of the final heat alone.

There are eight more relays (three women’s, five men’s) to look at before a judgement can be properly made, but making it into the top eight seeds looks like it will be a massive advantage in future. The Cal Men swimming their 200 medley relay twice at a last chance meet to move up in the top eight may have been them getting ahead of the curve.

Speaking of Cal, the Golden Bears showed once again why we should never, ever take them at face value during the season. Claire Weinstein dropped 16 seconds from her season best in the mile to go 15:36.52, placing 2nd after coming in as the #8 seed, and both relays (yes, even though the 200 medley was DQed) were faster than at ACCs. Mary-Ambre Moluh will be one to watch after moving up to #6 all-time in the 50 back with a 23.04.

Big Ten Looks Strong But OSU Add Big Again

Of the top four teams at Big Tens last month, we saw about what we would expect on the first day – Indiana and Michigan looked in good form, Wisconsin were slightly slower than at conference, and OSU saw some pretty big adds. For the second season in a row, the Buckeyes came in with a 6:54-point seed time in the 800 free relay and added at least four seconds. Every one of their swimmers was slower, with Rachel Bockrath and Erin Little adding more than a second each. After winning Big Tens last year, they underperformed at NCAAs and it looks like that might be the case again this year.

Indiana looked pretty great across their two relays, dropping time in both while freshman Liberty Clark swam a 17-18 NAG Record of 1:39.70 in the 200 free on the leadoff of the 800 free relay. Alex Shackell dropped splits of 22.27 in the 50 fly and 1:41.47 in the 200 free, and Kristina Paegle was sub-21 on the medley relay anchor yet again.

Michigan looked about on par with their Big Ten performances, but Bella Sims, Lexi Greenhawt, and Stephanie Balduccini looked good. They rank 5th in the standings and have ‘A’ final candidates in all four individual races tomorrow.

Finally, Gena Jorgensen. Four NCAA Championships, four best times in the mile. She notched her highest finish yet with 4th in the mile in 15:42.94, a 2.42 second drop from Big tens, and was just 0.29 seconds away from Katie Grimes in 3rd.

Hungary For More

Nikoletta Padar and Lilla Minna Abraham, who tied for gold in the 200 free at the LEN U23 Championships last summer, both had huge swims on the 800 free relay.

Padar led off in 1:40.30, a new Texas team record and a PB by over a second. That was the second-fastest leadoff in the field, and positions her as a serious contender for the individual title tomorrow. Abraham, who did not swim at Big Tens for USC – which evoked shades of the situation NC State had with David Betlehem and Betti Fabian – anchored the Trojans in 1:40.25, faster than the 1:41.92 she led off with last year. She would go on to take 2nd individually in 1:40.56, and should be in the mix again this year.

Additional Points

• Texas hasn’t made a habit of dropping time at NCAAs recently, but moved up in both relays with big time drops. With 200 to go they seemed primed for an upset in the 800 free relay, but a second-place finish and new school record isn’t bad as a consolation prize. Eva Okaro, Campbell Stoll and Piper Enge all looked good on the 200 medley relay and could be individual points scorers as soon as tomorrow.
• Stanford had one great relay and one good relay, but used Torri Huske on both and will have to leave her off one of the remaining three. Her 22.98 leadoff on the 200 medley was certainly worth it though, and Gigi Johnson splitting 22.14 on fly was a good sight for them.
• Louisville were not quite as good as their ACC counterparts, adding slightly in the 200 medley and more significantly in the 800 free relay. Julia Dennis continues to be one of the most reliable relay legs in college swimming though, splitting 20.71 to anchor them home to silver on the medley.
• Virginia were nearly perfect tonight, getting a 3rd-place finish from Katie Grimes in the mile and a pair of relay wins in top-ten times in history. Cavan Gormsen adding in the mile to place 13th was the only real blip, but Sara Curtis, Claire Curzan, and Anna Moesch, who anchored the 800 free relay in 1:39.03 for the #1 split ever, all looked imperious. Todd DeSorbo might know what he’s doing with this women’s team.
• Tennessee dropped time in both relays, and will be quietly happy with day 1. Ella Jansen set a new best time of 1:41.73 leading off the 800 free relay, and McKenzie Siroky has seemingly hit her taper this year after swimming her fastest-ever 50 breast split in the 200 medley.
• Florida added slightly in both relays but didn’t look as off form as they have in previous years. Michaela Mattes was 10th in the mile and their relays were both 11th, but they didn’t have many swimmers who look like they could move up in the standings from the psych sheets over the rest of the meet. Anita Botazzo was 25.69 on the breaststroke split in the 200 medley relay though, half a second faster than she was last year. Despite all this, Florida were actually the biggest winners in the standings on day 1, scoring 31 points to go +19 against seed.
• Just like last year, all of Georgia’s entrants in the mile added time. Kennedi Dobson was only three seconds slower than she was at SECs, but fell from 2nd to 6th, and Clark Neace added six seconds as she finished 14th. The 800 free relay also moved down with Dobson 1.33 seconds slower on the anchor here compared with SECs – a casualty of the new format?
• Grace Cummings is not just Indiana State’s first ever NCAA qualifier, she is also now their first ever NCAA scorer thanks to a 15th-place finish in the mile today – the first scorer among the conference champions who made it to the meet thanks to the new qualification system. She set a a huge new best time of 16:08.21, a Missouri Valley Conference record, and emphatically answered any questions about whether the new format would be adding swimmers just to make up the numbers.
• Both of Penn’s swimmers may have added time in the mile, but both Sydney Bergstrom (12th) and Anna Moehn (16th) finished in the points. The six they have at the end of day 1 is more than they scored at the meet last year.