Revisiting NCAA Recruit Rankings: Women’s High School Class of 2020

Each summer, college swimming fans look forward to recruiting – the lifeblood of any NCAA swim program. Since 2012, we’ve been ranking down the top NCAA prospects in the nation from each recruiting class. But sports are inherently unpredictable, and even the most sure-fire prospect can go awry or completely change their role over four years.

As we do each year, we’ll look back at the high school class of 2020, which just finished four years of college eligibility this spring.

First, a few notes:

• Most of the data we’re tracking here deals with NCAA scoring. Obviously, some swimmers are great assets for their teams in dual meets and conference competition without ever being national factors. While we don’t discount the impact of those types of swimmers, the difference in competition between various teams’ dual meet schedules and conference meets makes NCAA scoring the best “apples to apples” comparisons between swimmers.
• Relays are another point of contention, as a swimmer in a strong program has more opportunity for NCAA relays, though they also have more competition for those relay spots. We’ve left relay results out of the data below, except where specifically indicated. That, too, gives us a more fair comparison between athletes.
• We don’t rank diving recruits, but we have started to track individual diving scoring, which is helpful in determining how much of an impact a diver is likely to have on NCAA finish.
• We did our best to scour NCAA results over the past four-plus years, but it’s certainly possible we made a mistake in compiling our data. If you spot an error, please respectfully let us know in the comment section so we can update our work!

2024 Note: Due to swimmers being granted an extra year of eligibility after the 2020 NCAA cancelation, some of these athletes may still have years of scoring still to come.

We only include domestic recruits in our recruit rankings, as it’s often harder to predict if and when an international recruit will join the NCAA, and which class they should be ranked with. However, we’ve gone back through and tallied up all individual scorers that roughly fit into this class – international and domestic.

REVISITING OUR TOP 20

Check out this post for our analysis of the top 20 recruits in the high school class of 2020. For the sake of being the most accurate in terms of gauging a swimmer’s pre-college ability, we’re using the re-ank of the class after their senior year of high school rather than the original ranks from their junior seasons.

Here’s a look at our top 20 recruits, plus how many individual points they scored at NCAAs in each of their four years:

Note: we’ve made an effort to put a dash (–) in a season in which an athlete didn’t compete (or was cut short due to injury) rather than “no invite”. If you see an error please let us know in the comments.

The Hits:

• If we had to rank the swimmers again, there’s an argument that the top five would go unchanged. Regan Smith was going to be #1 regardless of any forecasting of the possibility of her turning pro early, and Alex Walsh has clearly solidified herself as the class’ top scorer over four years by a landslide with 221 points—that’s an average of 55.25 points or two titles and one 3-4 finish per NCAAs individually.
• Phoebe Bacon at #3 was another slam-dunk hit, as she won national titles in the 200 back as a freshman and a senior and was a key point scorer for Wisconsin throughout her career. #4 Olivia Bray and #5 Isabelle Stadden also had standout careers, consistently scoring between 27 and 42 points for their teams while also contributing on relays.
• We also saw #9 Emma Sticklen progress into a multi-time NCAA champion over the course of her career, starting off with 18 points as a freshman and then having back-to-back 40+ point seasons that included consecutive 200 fly titles as an upperclassman.
• Outside of the top 10, Emma Weyant was ranked 11th and managed to surpass 100 points despite deferring her enrollment for a year, peaking with 48 points and a pair of runner-up finishes this past season.
• Gabi Albiero also eclipsed 100 points for Louisville and was a driving force behind their relays, following a five-point freshman season with an average of 37 over the following three campaigns.
• 7th-ranked Kaitlyn Dobler wasn’t a monstrous point scorer relative to some of her peers, but still put up 89 as a breaststroker, making four straight ‘A’ finals in the 100 breast and winning the title in 2022.
• Virginia got consistent contributions from Anna Keating and Abby Harter throughout their careers along with Walsh and one season from Weyant, while Maxine Parker transferred from Georgia and served a crucial role for the Cavaliers as well.
• Other notable performers among our ranked recruits were #19 Katherine Zenick and Honorable Mentions Chloe Stepanek, Emma Atkinson and Paige Hetrick.

The Misses:

• Only two of our top 20 recruits didn’t score in four years, both Stanford commits.
• Janelle Rudolph only qualified for NCAAs in her freshman year, and was ranked 15th primarily for her versatility. She never quite managed to take the next step to challenge for NCAA scoring in any one specific event, save perhaps the 100 back where she broke 52 in 2021.
• Not technically a miss is Samantha Pearson, who joined Regan Smith and Lillie Nordmann in deferring her enrollment for a year. She made NCAAs in her first season in 2022, but a medical condition got in the way of her progression, though she raced through the 2024 Pac-12s and had second swims in both backstroke events.
• Chase Travis maybe didn’t live up to her recruiting ranking from an NCAA scoring perspective for Virginia Tech, but was a consistent contributor at the conference championship level in the distance freestyle events, including a runner-up finish in the mile in 2022.
• Four Honorable Mention recruits didn’t end up scoring.

OTHER IMPACTFUL RECRUITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2020

Of course, not every contributor comes from our top 20 list. Some swimmers develop extremely well in college. Some swimmers slip under our radar, or don’t prove to be late bloomers once they hit the NCAA.

We dug through NCAA results to find the best American swimmers from this class to not appear on our top 20 list. Again, it’s not always easy to account for redshirt years, gap years or mistakes in an athlete’s listed class each season. So if we forgot anyone, please let us know in the comments.

Standouts:

• The only reason Reilly Tiltmann wasn’t a member of the ranked recruits in this class is because she graduated early and was an original member of the high school class of 2021. Tiltmann, ranked 12th in the 2021 class rankings, joined Virginia one semester early and seamlessly slotted in to score 23 points as an extra-young freshman. She put up a total of 90 over four seasons, highlighted by a 37-point sophomore season that included a pair of 5th-place showings in the backstroke events.
• Sarah Foley was a standout for Duke during her career, particularly in her sophomore and junior seasons when she combined for 42 of her 46 points. A 200 IM NCAA ‘A’ finalist in both 2022 and 2023, Foley was also a relay force for the Blue Devils, and would be much more decorated at the conference level if she didn’t share the ACC with UVA during their dynasty.
• Lola Mull only swam three seasons at Northwestern—she entered the transfer portal last July but didn’t end up competing in 2023-24—but put up 30 points between her first two years. Eighth in the 1650 as a freshman, she moved up to 7th in 2022 and was also a consolation finalist in the 500.
• Minnesota’s Megan van Berkom, Auburn’s Meghan Lee and Virginia Tech’s Caroline Bentz were among the swimmers who came into their own as their careers progressed. Van Berkom put up 27 of her 33 points over her last two seasons, while Lee and Bentz both hit double-digit points for the first time as seniors.
• Grace Cooper and Caroline Famous also had breakthrough performances as seniors, scoring for the first time. Famous’ nine points came after she qualified individually for NCAAs for the first time.

INTERNATIONAL

Standouts:

• The international class is headlined by two breaststroke stars, as Anna Elendt (GER) and Mona McSharry (IRL) were two of nine swimmers in the class who scored 100 or more points in four seasons. Elendt has finished in the top five of both breaststroke events at NCAAs over the past three seasons, finishing as high as 2nd, while McSharry has three 30+ point seasons and three runner-up finishes individually—including both breast events in 2024.
• Canadian Avery Wiseman had her most impactful season for Alabama in 2022, her first campaign after deferring her first year of eligibility, though she scored in all three seasons.
• Germany’s Nicole Maier was one of two mid-major swimmers to score in this class, putting up 15 points over the last two seasons at Miami (Ohio).
• Italian Jasmine Nocentini was not part of this class, having started her collegiate career during the 2019-20 season at FIU. However, after spending time at Northwestern, being poised to score before an injury forced her out of NCAAs last season, she transferred to UVA and got on the board for the first time in 2024, putting up 51 points including winning the national title in the 100 breast. We’re mentioning Nocentini here as she wasn’t mentioned in the class of 2019 edition of this article last year as she was yet to score.

DIVING

Standouts:

• Aranza Vazquez Montano has amassed a staggering 145 points in four seasons at UNC, highlighted by consecutive sweeps of the springboard events in her junior and senior seasons. The Tokyo Olympian established herself as a force to be reckoned with by scoring 47 points as a freshman and never slowed down. Her 40-point performance as a senior was more than half of UNC’s total score, and without her, the Tar Heels would’ve slid from 17th to 21st.
• Injury has resulted in Indiana’s Tarrin Gilliland only being able to compete in her freshman and sophomore seasons, but she was a bonafide star and still managed 78 points, winning back-to-back platform titles.
• The Hoosiers also got key contributions from Anne Fowler, including a career-high 18 points in her senior year.
• LSU’s Montserrat Lavenant had a big senior year that included a runner-up finish on platform, scoring 34 points to bring her four-year tally up to 77. Lavenant scored every year, but two-thirds of her points came in her upperclass seasons.
• Louisville’s Else Praasterink and Texas’ Bridget O’Neil also got better as their careers went on, with O’Neil scoring the vast majority of her points in 2024 and Praasterink scoring 37 of her 44 points in her junior and senior years.
• Similar to Nocentini in swimming, UCLA’s Savana Trueb scored for the first time as a fifth-year, putting up two points.

ALL INDIVIDUAL SCORERS IN THE CLASS

(Ranked recruits are listed with their 2018 rank. International recruits are listed with “INTL” and unranked recruits with “NR.” Diving recruits are listed with “DIVE”)

ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKS