Texas All-American Grace Ariola Not On NCAA Pre-Selection Psych Sheets

2020 NCAA DIVISION I WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, March 18 – Saturday, March 21, 2020
• Ramsey Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
• Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (U.S. Eastern Time)
• Defending champs: Stanford (3x) – results
• Championship Central
• Live stream:
  • Prelims (free): Thursday / Friday / Saturday
  • Finals (ESPN3)
• Psych Sheets
• Live results

Returning individual NCAA scorer and relay All-American Grace Ariola is not entered in the 2020 NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships.

Ariola was 16th at NCAAs last year – her freshman year – in the 50 free. She was 22.02 in prelims and as fast as 21.7 earlier in the year. Ariola also led off Texas’s 200 free relay (7th overall) and anchored its 400 medley relay in prelims and 200 medley relay in finals (12th overall) and 400 free relay in finals (4th overall).

Last month, Ariola only swam four times for Texas at the Big 12 Championships. She was 23.11 and 23.08 in a pair of 50 frees and split 25.3 backstroke and 22.6 freestyle on exhibition relays. With her mid-season rest meet times (22.6/51.2 freestyle, 54.1 backstroke), Ariola was probably a longshot to make an NCAA invite this season. But she doesn’t even appear on the pre-selection psych sheets, suggesting she may not even be available as a relay swimmer for NCAAs.

More evidence to that theory: Texas limited three of its top athletes (Claire Adams, Julia Cook, Kelly Pash) to just two individual events, which would free them up to swim all five relays, perhaps to cover for the loss of Ariola.

We’ve reached out to Texas for comment on Ariola’s status, but have not yet received a response.

You can see our story on the pre-selection psych sheets here.

SEE THE FULL PRE-SELECTION NCAA WOMEN’S PSYCH SHEETS HERE