2019 Women’s NCAA Championships: Top 10 Teams Point Changes

2019 WOMEN’S DIVISION I NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, March 20th – Saturday, March 23rd
• Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center — Austin, Texas
• Championship Central
• Live Results

Stanford won their third straight NCAA title relatively comfortably, but during the meet all the buzz was about how well the Cal women were performing. Comparing swimmer’s individual points to their scores from last year reveals why. Returning Stanford swimmers scored 1.5 more points than they did last year. Returning Cal swimmer had a net gain of 61 points, the most of any team that finished in the top 10. (This analysis only considers swimmers that qualified for this year’s meet.)

Stanford had two swimmers that picked up more points than any one on Cal did. Brooke Forde gained 22 (43 this year, 21 last year), and Lauren Pitzer gained 21 (22, 1). Cal’s top point gainer was Abbey Weitzeil who gained 19 (50, 31). However, Forde and Pitzer’s big gains were offset by Katie Drabot who dropped 29.5 points from last year (19.5, 49) and Megan Byrnes who dropped 14 (1, 15)

In addition to Weitzeil, Cal’s big gains were helped greatly by Keaton Blovad who was +18 (18, 0) and Amy Bilquist who was +16 (43, 27).

The other big gainer in the top 10 teams was Virginia who were +56 overall. They were led by Paige Madden who went from not scoring last year to scoring 38 points this year. They also got a big jump from Morgan Hill who was +13 (18, 5).

There were plenty of other big point gainers across the top 10 teams.

Catie DeLoof of Michigan was +25 (31, 6). Ky-Lee Perry of NC State was +24 over last year when she was unable to swim at NCAA’s due to an injury. Mallory Comerford of Louisville was +19 (56, 37). Louise Hansson of USC was +19 (55, 36).

Point gains are not the be all, end all metric for team improvement. We also need to consider time change. I will be looking at that next week.

Team Net Changes

No Senior points are how many points that swimmer scored in a re scoring of last year’s national meet with the seniors removed.

Stanford

Overall: +1.5

Cal

Overall: +61

Michigan

Overall: +1

Louisville

Overall: +6

Texas

Overall: -4

Virginia

Overall: +56

NC State

Overall: +6

Tennessee

Overall: +10.5

Indiana

Overall: -5

USC

Overall: +15