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Xavier Ruiz from Puerto Rico will swim and study at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill beginning this fall. At the time of his commitment last year, he wrote on social media:
“I’m very happy to announce my verbal commitment to continue my academics and athletic career at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill!! I wanna thank my family for always supporting me during my recruiting process, and to my coaches Dani, Emma and Bambino for all the support.I am very grateful to coach Javi, Mark and the entire UNC staff for making this dream come true. I’m really excited to become a tar heel and make history with this team. GO TAR HEELS💙🐏”
Ruiz swims for Ridgefield Aquatic Club in Connecticut when he’s stateside and for San Juan Cariba when he is in Puerto Rico. 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier in the 100m breast and 200m breast, Ruiz is one of our “Best of the Rest” recruits on our re-rank of top boys from the high school class of 2024. He represents Puerto Rico internationally and is the national record-holder in the LCM 50/100/200 breast (28.14/1:00.95/2:12.54) and SCM 50 breast (28.20).
At 2023 Winter Juniors East, he won the 200 breast (1:54.97) and came in 3rd in the 100 breast (53.46) and earned SCY best times in the 100/200 breast and 200 IM. This summer, he competed at the Connecticut Senior Long Course Championships and clocked PBs in the LCM 200 back (2:10.15) and 400 IM (4:27.75). He won the 100/200 breast and 400 IM and he came in 5th in the 200 back.
Best SCY times:
- 100 breast – 53.46
- 200 breast – 1:54.97
- 200 IM – 1:51.05
Ruiz will join the Tar Heels in the class of 2028 with JT Schmid, PJ Foy, Sean Setzer, Adam Maraana, Brady Begin, Eddie Jin, James Bennison, Martin Kartavi, and Nate Hohm. UNC finished 8th out of 11 teams at the 2024 ACC Championships. Ruiz would have been their second-fastest breaststroker behind then-freshman Ben Delmar (52.70/1:53.08), with whom he will overlap three years.
https://www.instagram.com/uncswimdive/p/CztYeT8sjmp/?img_index=1
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For a Puerto Rican maybe that different since they are a US Territory. But the fact is, often US kids (especially boys) are coming out of HS at 17 or 18 and haven’t physically developed and are competing w Europeans who are 20 or 21 for scholarships. Look at some of the NCAA top 20 rosters that have 20, 30, 40 % of their scholarship money going to foreigners. How is that helping US kids continue to develop and improve in college?
Good for Xavier but when are we going to put a cap on foreign swimmers on NCAA teams. Should be one per team. It is hurting the development opportunities for US swimmers. Many great 17 year old boys never have a chance to develop to their potential because there aren’t spots on great NCAA teams. Too many spots given to foreign athletes especially in top 20 NCAA teams.
There are no Team USA-caliber swimmers who aren’t getting spots on college teams.
Xavier is Puerto Rican and has US citizenship, so where would he go ? He’s not an international student
Yeah but he sounds foreign so.
There are thousands of spots between D!/D2/D3 for all swimmers. This mindset of foreigners taking spots from US swimmers is ignorant. No USA national team member would agree with you.
so much for academics….
If PR is a territory of the US, is it accurate to refer to him as “national record holder”?
They’re still a nation. They even have their own olympians.