Hailey Tierney Goes From An Unranked Recruit To The Top 50 Freestyler In Class of 2023

NOTE: A full recap of the 2022 Wisconsin Girls’ Division I State Championships will come soon.

In less than a year, how does a high school senior manage to go from an unranked recruit to the top 50 freestyler in her class?

Hailey Tierney was a good swimmer in May 2022. She held best times of 22.85 and 50.12 in the 50 and 100 free, and was committed to swim in-state at the University of Wisconsin, a top 25 NCAA program. But her times were far from the best swimmers in her recruiting class, and she wasn’t included on SwimSwam’s list of top girls’ NCAA recruits for the class of 2023—not even as an honorable mention or “best of the rest” recruit.

But that was about to change very soon.

First came the long course season, where Tierney saw significant improvements. She set best times of 25.75 and 56.71 in the 50 and 100 free, with her 50 free time being just 0.35 seconds off what it took to make the U.S. Junior National team. These marks were significant improvements from her best times of 26.96 and 58.50 from a year ago, and gave her confidence heading into her senior high school season.

“During club long course season, I got a lot better at actually swimming freestyle aside from underwaters because of long course training,”  Tierney told SwimSwam. “I came into high school season confident about my stroke, and excited that I could combine my underwaters with the actual swimming that I knew I strengthened over the summer.”

Tierney, currently a senior at Arrowhead High School who swims club for the Lake Country Swim Team, started her high school season strong, as she set a best time in a dual meet. She took that as an indication that she was capable of dropping much more a,nd set a 50 free goal time of 22.12 that she described as “lofty”. At the 2022 Wisconsin High School State Championships, she blew that “goal time” out of the water.

Swimming a 21.84, Tierney was over a second faster than her season-best from last year, and her time surpassed Camille Spink’s 22.16 to become the top 50 free mark for girls in the high school class of 2023. 21.84 also would have been fast enough to earn a spot in the “B” final at the 2022 NCAA Championships, putting Tierney in NCAA scoring contention before she even graduated from high school. In addition to the 50 free, she also had a big swim in the 100 free, hitting a massive time of 48.52 that’s just a few tenths off of Spink’s class-leading mark of 48.13.

A large portion of Tierney’s success can be attributed to her coaches teaching her a technique called race visualization, where she went through her races in her head before actually swimming them.

“Since I had already visualized the race so much in my head, I had already ‘swam’ the [50 free] multiple times.” Tierney said. “I knew what I was capable of, so [on] the day of states, all I had to do was actually swim it the way I had [in my head], and my body just took over.”

Tierney specifically focused on her breakouts and finishes in race visualizations, as that’s what she says she struggles the most in when she actually races.

“[Breakouts and finishes] are especially important in a 50, and I also practiced these a lot [in the water] leading up to states since I knew they were my biggest weaknesses,” Tierney said. “During the race, I executed these just like how I did during my visualizations, which was very exciting!”

And while Tierney swam an exceptional time in her 50 free, the race was far from a blowout, as Brookefield East Senior Lucy Thomas finished just 0.05 seconds behind her. Thomas, a Stanford commit who is better known for having the fastest breaststroke times in her class, dropped from her best time of 22.33 to go 21.89. She is now the #2 50 freestyler in the class of 2023 behind Tierney.

A tight race may seem stressful to most, but for Tierney, it actually helped.

“I usually swim better when I have a very close race with someone, and I think being next to [Thomas] pushed me to be my absolute greatest.” Tierney said. “She has also been someone I have looked up to my entire life as a swimmer in Wisconsin, so it was super exciting to get to race her on Saturday.

Going into the race, I wasn’t focused that much on winning the actual event but more on my own race and executing what I had visualized. It was such an exciting race though, being that close in time between us.”

When the meet concluded, Arrowhead High ended up as the overall team winner, amassing a total of 338.5 points. Tierney scored 40 of those points individually and was also on all three of her school’s relays, with the 200 free relay finishing first.

“I’m super happy with my times in my individual events and the relays,” Tierney said. “I contribute a lot of what I did to my teammates and coaches, who were there for me throughout the season and especially during the meet. I don’t think I could’ve done what I did without their support, and after how pumped I was upon seeing the success of all of my teammates; I knew I could do it after they did.”

In fall 2023, Tierney will join a Wisconsin team that has recruited some of the best girls’ swimmers in the country recently. In her year is the #19-ranked Maddie Waggoner, and in the class of 2024, #5-ranked Maggie Wanezek has verbally committed to the Badgers. Come time for 2024, these swimmers will be teammates with #7-ranked 2022 recruit Blair Stoneburg, 2022 NCAA champion Paige McKenna, and potentially Olympian Phoebe Bacon if she decides to use her fifth year of eligibility. That being said, Wisconsin’s budding starpower is an indication that they are on their way to becoming one of the nation’s top women’s swimming programs.