Virginia Freshman Tess Howley Swims 1st PB In SCY 200 Fly Since December 2021 In NCAA Prelims

2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Virginia freshman Tess Howley had a personal best time of a 1:52.76 in the 200 butterfly from December 2021 coming into NCAAs. Howley swam a best time during prelims of the event with a 1:51.95 at NCAAs to move up to 4th in prelims to make the ‘A’ final.

Since her best time in 2021, Howley has swam the event 14 times. She was not far off her best time in March 2022 as she swam a 1:52.88 and she swam a 1:53.04 in December 2022. Despite not hitting a SCY best time in a few years, Howley has continued to drop time in the LCM version of the event, swimming a best time of a 2:06.85 at 2023 Summer Junior Nationals.

In prelims at 2024 NCAAs, Howley swam a best time clocking a 1:51.95 before swimming a 1:52.41 in finals. Both were under her previous best.

Howley spoke of looking at the board seeing her time saying, “It felt amazing. It was great to see that time on the board, and just being at Virginia has helped me a long way and I’m really proud of that time.”

Prior to NCAAs, her season best was a 1:54.75 that she swam in the dual meet against Florida in October, at the start of the season. This placed Howley as the 17th seed coming into NCAAs. Despite being the 17th seed, one away from being projected to make a final, Howley liked where she was at.

“So definitely [being] seeded 17th was actually a fun spot for me because I knew that I had it in me to score. My previous best would have seeded me higher, but I like to take that in and take it as a challenge. I think both Abby [Harter] and I did a great job,” Howley said.

The Virginia women are home to NCAA record holder in the 200 butterfly Alex Walsh as she swam a 1:49.16 at ACCs. Despite setting the NCAA record, Walsh opted to not swim the 200 fly on the final day of NCAAs and instead swim the 200 breast.

As the 200 fly was the last individual swimming event of the meet, and the Virginia women had over a 100-point lead on Texas, a fourth-straight NCAA title looked to already be in sight. Nonetheless, additional points as both Harter and Howley moved up from the 16th and 17th seeds respectively to 4th (Howley) and 6th (Harter) helped ensure the team’s win as Texas also had a strong 200 fly crew with three ‘A’ finalists.

Howley was the #5 ranked recruit coming out of high school, helping the Virginia women to the #3 ranked recruiting class in the country. She said her first year “has been great. I mean, I’ve had only the best experiences on UVA and I love to spend the time with my girls because they just pushed me to be the best person I can be and in and out of the pool.”