2025 North Carolina Swimming Short Course Age Group Champs
- Feb 13-16, 2025
- Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary, North Carolina
- Short Course Yards (Prelims/Finals)
- Psych Sheet
- Meet Central
- Day 1 Recap
- Day 2 Recap
- Results on Meet Mobile: “2025 NCS SC AG Champs”
A day after becoming the youngest female swimmer in history to go under 1 minute in the 100 yard breaststroke, 14-year-old Karina Plaza also broke the 13-14 National Age Group Record in the 200 breaststroke.
The SwimMAC’er touched in 2:09.40, winning the title by more than seven seconds, and shaving .18 seconds off the record set last year by Californian Mikayla Tan.
Much like in the 100, this was a back-half swim for Plaza vis-a-vis the record. She was out in 1:02.28, as compared to Tan’s opening split of 1:01.87; but came home in 1:07.12, as compared to Tan’s 1:07.71.
She similarly did most of the work on her old personal best at the end of the race: 1.3 of the 1.94 seconds she dropped off her best time came in the final 50.
| Mikayla Tan | Karina Plaza | Karina Plaza | |
| 2024 Winter Juniors | 2025 NC Age Groups |
2024 Age Group Sectionals
|
|
| 50y | 29.31 | 29.63 | 29.94 |
| 100y | 32.56 | 32.65 | 32.73 |
| 150y | 33.53 | 33.42 | 33.67 |
| 200y | 34.18 | 33.70 | 35.00 |
| Total | 2:09.58 | 2:09.40 | 2:11.34 |
Plaza’s opening 100 would rank in the top 65 American 13-14s of all-time as a standalone swim. Her 2:11.34 from March was the previous North Carolina LSC Record in the event and her previous personal best.
This was Plaza’s third individual win of the week in the 13-14 age group. She also won the 400 IM in 4:12.12, dropping 5.44 seconds off her previous best time.
Also on Saturday, she finished 2nd in the 100 back in 53.88 and split 59.96 on the breaststroke leg of SwimMAC Carolina’s winning 400 medley relay (3:40.27).
Other Day 3 Highlights:
- John Williams has been hot all weekend long and continued that on Saturday with a win in the 200 breaststroke in 2:06.34, knocking .37 seconds off his best time. That added to prior wins in the 400 IM (4:00.16), 100 breast (57.72), 200 free (1:41.22), and 100 IM (52.25).
- TAC Titans 14-year-old Reina Liu beat out Plaza in the 100 backstroke by a margin of 51.98 to 53.88. That just-missed Liu’s best time of 51.86 from Winter Juniors – East. Liu also won the 50 free in 22.17, knocking .29 seconds off her lifetime best, and moves her up to 4th-place in the all-time age group rankings. Another TAC Titan, Claire Curzan, holds the record in 21.89, followed by Gretchen Walsh, Charlotte Crush, Liu, and Kate Douglass, who was bumped to 5th on that list.
- After breaking the North Carolina Swimming LSC Record in the 1000 free to open the meet, Sam Wooten had a big drop in the 500 free. He won the race in 4:31.58, taking almost three seconds off his 6th-place swim from the North Carolina 4A State Championship Meet 10 days ago.
- SwimMAC’s Emma Richardson won the 13-14 girls’ 200 fly in 2:01.23, which is a 4.6-second drop off her previous best time done at Age Group Sectionals in March 2024.
Keeping my eye on Reina Liu – Stealth Canadian so seeing if she can jump onto a Senior team soon as we need to re-load with the next generation.
Is she a dual citizen? Or Canadian training in the US like few Canadian are doing in Sarasota?
I don’t know if she was born and raised in NC to Canadian parents or born in Canada and raised in NC. Regardless, she’s already represented Canada at Jr Pan Pacs, so her sporting nationality is Canada.
Amazing times in both races!
swimmac has churned out a lottt of elite breakstrokers lately: grace, sofia, elle (who i think just broke alex walsh’s national hs record), avery — and now karina!
grace and sofia appear to have regressed a bit at florida so im curious how elle adapts to cal
if she adapts well cal is going to have a very very scary medley next year… teagan / scott / jia / moluh
I hope she’s good long course too
What a helpful point. I hope she can do organic chemistry and drive a manual car too.
I can assure you, she is
Rami Rahgooni 15:10.51 14 years old Tunisia