2025 Battle at the Burr
- October 4th, 2025
- Washington, D.C, Burr Gym Pool
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results on MeetMobile: “Battle at the Burr 2025”
- Team scores
- Men: Georgetown 139- Howard 78
- Women: Georgetown 118- Howard 106
At its best, swimming is an electric sport. Swimmers line the sides of pools and pack the ends of lanes, screaming and waving their teammates on. Spectators cram themselves into not-quite-big-enough stands and rain down whistles, bells, and shouts of encouragement from above. The room oscillates from eerie, absolute silence to eruptions of deafening, incomprehensible noise.
The Battle at the Burr is swimming at its absolute best.
The fourth annual Battle at the Burr was held on Saturday, and its notoriously electric atmosphere did not disappoint. The meet, which is contested between Howard University and Georgetown, is the brainchild of Howard head coach Nic Askew, and has become an iconic part of the dual meet schedule since its inception in 2022.
Both Georgetown men and women claimed victory over Howard on Saturday’s meet. Neither Howard’s men or women have beaten Georgetown in Battle at the Burr, but the meet is always close. This year, the winner on the women’s side was decided by a mere twelve points.
Since there isn’t a warmup/cooldown pool in the facility, all of the swimmers line the deck to cheer on their teammates when they’re not racing, adding to the raucous atmosphere generated by the crowd and the poolside announcer, who sounds like he is introducing UFC fighters.
Alongside the action, the meet features two DJs and two enormous TV screens, one of each for the pool deck and the watch party that is held in an adjacent gym. There are $200 VIP tickets sold alongside general admissions and tickets to the watch party, and if you think that’s too much to ask for a ticket to a dual meet, you’d be mistaken: they sold out, alongside general admissions, for the fourth year running.
Last year’s meet saw over 1000 fans pack into Burr Gym Pool, and while exact spectator numbers are not available, this year’s attendance at least matched that number. Four-time Olympic medalist Cullen Jones was present to kick off the action, and the meet even featured a VIP reception on Friday that featured the premiere of the movie “When Everyone Swims”.
The timing of the meet is rather poetic: it comes one day after a record-breaking crowd turned out for an ASU dual meet in Tempe versus UNLV, and two days after the NCAA announced format changes aimed at increasing the NCAA Championships’ commercial success. Standing side by side, these two meets are perhaps the strongest example we’ve ever seen of the potential college swimming has as a spectator sport and a commercial venture.
Women’s Recap
The meet kicked off with the women’s 200 medley relay, which saw Howard strike the first blow. Spurred on by an absolutely electric environment, the team of Myeisha Sharrieff (27.07), Brooke Whitt (29.77), Alyssa Napier (24.85), and Gabrielle Vickles (23.37) got to the wall first for Howard, clocking a time of 1:45.06 and winning the first race of the meet in a definitive manner.
Camille Weiss, a graduate student at Georgetown, immediately responded. She registered 10:25.53 in the 1000 free to claim victory, but Howard quickly regained their early momentum with two successive victories. Howard senior Zuzu Nwaeze took first in the 200 free with a time of 1:53.50, and was followed up by Gabrielle Vickles and Jasmine Morgan, who earned a Howard 1-2 in the 50 freestyle, clocking 24.58 and 24.97, respectively.
Over the next three events, Georgetown turned the tide. Angelica Reali led a Hoyas 1-2-3 finish in the 200 IM, winning the event in 2:09.06. The 100 fly was then won by Bella Dimaculangan, who stopped the clock in 57.94, and Madeline Malone clocked 51.80 to take victory in the 100 free.
Chanice Posada, a junior, stopped the skid for Howard, winning the 100 back in a time of 56.40, but the Hoyas managed to take second and third place in the event, and immediately followed it up with a 1-2-3 finish in the 500 free led by Camille Weiss (5:08.91).
Howard needed strong finishes in the last two events, and they got them. Howard junior Rhanishka Gibbs (1:05.86) out-touched teammate Brooke Whitt (1:05.91) in the 100 breast, and in the 200 free relay, Howard women secured a 1-2 finish, led by the team of Jasmine Morgan (24.62), Gabrielle Vickles (23.63), Chanice Posada (23.73), and Zuzu Nwaeze (23.12), who won the event in 1:35.10.
The strong finish, however, wasn’t enough. Georgetown’s depth across the board proved to be too much for the Bison to overcome. In the end, the Hoyas defeated Howard by just 12 points, the smallest margin of victory ever seen in the women’s Battle at the Burr.
Men’s Recap
Conversely to the women’s, this year’s men’s meet was by far the most lopsided in the history of the Battle at the Burr. Last year saw a winning margin of just 10 points for Georgetown. With Howard only winning two events, this year’s margin was much higher: 61 points, in favor of Georgetown.
The Georgetown men returned the favor to the Howard women in the relay events, taking both in decisive fashion.
The team of Isaac Holtham (23.83), Nick Pezella (25.90), Henry Haupt (22.20), and Owen Watlkins (19.88) earned Georgetown’s victory in the 200 medley, touching the wall in 1:31.81 and beating out Howard’s fastest relay by exactly a second. In the 200 free relay, Daren Chen (21.65), Owen Watkins (20.44), Troy Keen (20.92), and Bailey De Luise (21.55) stopped the clock in 1:24.56, again earning the Hoyas first place.
Owen Watkins, a Georgetown sophomore, was undoubtedly the men’s swimmer of the meet. He was the only Georgetown swimmer to compete on both of their winning relays, and tacked on two individual wins of his own, clocking 20.60 in the 50 free and 46.10 in the 100 free to take victory in both.
Isaac Holtham, a freshman at Georgetown, matched Watkins’ individual win count, leaving him with three first-place finishes overall. He claimed victory in the 200 IM (1:53.64) and 100 back (50.86). The final Hoyas’ swimmer with multiple wins was senior Bailey De Luise, who took first in the 100 breast (58.00) on top of his contribution to the 200 free relay.
The Hoyas swept the distance free events, with Ronan Krauss standing on the top step for Georgetown in the 1000 free, clocking 10:04.08, and Gabe Gonda dominating the field in the 500 free, clocking 4:46.96 and gapping the 2nd place finisher by ten seconds.
Only two Howard swimmers, Mason Green and Taj Benton, managed to swim their way to the top step of the podium. Green captured first in the 200 free, clocking a time of 1:43.19. Benton registered a time of 49.02 to take victory in the 100 fly.
Looking Forward
Howard’s men’s and women’s teams will return to competition in the upcoming weekend. The Bison men will compete in the NJIT Invitational in Newark on October 10th and 11th, while the women travel to Jacksonville for the Osprey Beach Blast Invite, which is held on the same days. Georgetown has a small break before taking on American University at home on October 17th.
