The Boston College swimming & diving program is on a streak of improvement that wasn’t slowed down even by a new coaching staff, and this week they got more good news with a big-time transfer from the Pac-12.
Katrina Sommer, who swam for UCLA last season, has announced that she will finish her collegiate career at Boston College next year. She will be using her 5th year/COVID eligibility year while working on an MS in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance.
This will be Sommer’s third NCAA program in five seasons: she began at Indiana for a season, returned closer to her Southern California home to swim at UCLA for three seasons, and will now head to the East Coast to wrap her career in Boston.
So far, she’s made improvements at each of those stops, including a shift from the 100 back to the 400 IM at UCLA:
Time Progressions:
| HS Best | Best at Indiana | Best at UCLA | |
| 200 back | 1:59.47 | 1:59.08 | 1:57.27 |
| 200 IM | 2:02.75 | 2:01.76 | 2:00.52 |
| 400 IM | — | — | 4:18.78 |
Her best time in the 100 back of 54.94 came at a dual meet on a relay leadoff in her junior season, so she could become a big relay contributor for the Bruins there as well. She also split 22.96 in a 50 free and has a 51.12 flat-start best in the 100 free from high school, so she could be a multi-relay contributor for the Eagles.
The Boston College women were last at the 2023 ACC Championships, the same position they’ve held every year since joining the conference in 2006 (with the exception of a few years where they beat the diving-only program at Clemson). But that doesn’t tell the full story of Boston College’s improvement curve.
In a January dual meet against crosstown rivals Boston University, the Eagles broke 3 school records and 15 pool records. Mid-season, the women’s team broke 6 school records. That was all a buildup to the ACC Championships where the men and women combined for a further 10 school records, and Adair Sand finished 12th in the 500 free – one of the best individual finishes in school history. The BC 200 free relay finished 9th and got a 22.32 split from Giovanna Baldacci.
While Sommer’s best times don’t indicate that she’s going to roll in and swim a bunch of A-finals in a very deep ACC conference, she is scheduled to score points, especially in the 200 back, where she’s close to a B Final. Even those kind of scorers, just having the BC cap show up in the evening session, having a presence on deck, in the warmup pool, can continue to push that momentum forward.
Sommer is a native of Villa Park, California and grew up training with Irvine Novaquatics and attending Villa Park High School.
