Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) – Men and Women
- Dates: Wednesday, February 25–Saturday, February 28
- Location: Hampton Aquaplex, Hampton, VA
- Defending Champions: UNC-Wilmington women (3x); UNC-Wilmington men (4x)
- Live Results (Day 2)
- Live Video: FloCollege
- Schedule of Events (PDF)
- Championship Central
- SwimSwam Fan Guide
- Teams: Campbell (women), Drexel, Monmouth, Northeastern (women), Stony Brook (women), Towson, UNC-Wilmington, William & Mary
The first night of individual swimming for the 2026 CAA Conference didn’t disappoint in speed or competition.
The session’s crown jewel swim came from UNCW junior William Carrico in the men’s 200 IM. After displaying strong form in the previous day’s relays, Carrico took it to another level with his first event, unleashing a 1:42.09. This shaves several seconds from his previous personal best of 1:44.69 from the Kellianne Nagy Fall Frenzy Invite last year, and it also blew past the 1:44.13 NCAA A cut. If that’s not enough, Carrico also beat Brian Benzig’s conference and meet records from 2024. This March will be Carrico’s first time competing at the NCAA Championships.
Carrico’s female teammates also picked up some serious hardware on night two in Hampton, taking three swimming events out of four. The women’s 200 IM was a three-woman race between UNCW’s Maeren Mcgonical and Gil Shaw and W&M’s Tess Lankford. Shaw leveraged a 33.63 breaststroke split, the fastest in the field by a second, to just edge out Lankford for the win 2:00.84 to 2:00.95. McGonigal finished a close third in 2:01.13.
McGonigal and Shaw came back for the 400 medley relay to bring another title back to Wilmington. As the respective backstroker and breaststroker, they joined forces with Cameron Snowden and Alex Tysinger to churn out a 3:35.53, just missing their 3:35.16 conference record from last year. Snowden was the heat’s star, throwing down a 51.20 butterfly split.
Snowden also put on a dominant performance individually in the 50 free. Her 22.39 cleared the rest of the A final by at least a quarter of a second. The men’s 50 free final, by contrast, was as close at it could be, with .01 separating each of the top three. The podium order went Drexel junior Theo Andreopoulos (19.60); William & Mary’s Aiden Bond (19.61), and Sebastian Smith of Drexel (19.62). It marked a best time for the winner by nearly two tenths of a second.
Other Day Two Winners:
- Andreopoulos put his sprint skills on display again with a 42.55 anchor in Drexel’s podium-topping 400 medley relay. Other legs included Dimi Gkelis (48.09), Bart Loter (52.33), and Sebastian Smith (45.17)
- Two senior divers – Shannon Parrau of Towson and MaKenna Sharpe of UNCW – earned NCAA scores for the top two positions in the women’s 3m
- Brittany Corbett of Drexel is your CAA Conference champion in the women’s 500 free. She went a 4:47.79 to hold off a late surge from Towson’s Addie Scott (4:48.38). Representing Towson, Christian Davidson won the men’s event with a dominant 4:21.03, leading from the 200 onward.
Team Race
The UNCW Seahawks have had some of their best years in program history recently, but competition in 2026 looks stiff. On the men’s end, Wilmington leads Towson by just ten points. The women’s race is currently led by William & Mary, who have a sizeable 60-point lead over the #2 UNCW.
I remember my former coach from an NAIA school showing an X post of this guy, heavily emphasizing his insane 1-year progression in his 500 from a couple years ago. Is there an open-source full race video of that anywhere?
You wrote that the time “blew past the 1:44.13 NCAA A cut.” There is no A cut. It’s just a qualifying time now. His time is fast as all get out, but it took a 1:40.52 last year to make Top 8 out of prelims, which was the traditional A-Cut, I believe.
That said, he’s certainly earned his invite. And he’ll get to swim again in a few weeks.
Let’s go Tribe!!