2022 “Best of the Rest” Swimmer Riley Sampson Commits to Florida State

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Riley Sampson, one of SwimSwam’s only remaining Top Uncommitted Recruits in the High School class of 2022, has announced his commitment to Florida State University. 

Sampson, who is from Silver Springs, Florida, competes for the Central Florida Marlins. In May of 2021, he was listed as one of SwimSwam’s “Best of the Rest” recruits in the high school class of 2022. 

He primarily specializes in the distance freestyle events, but also had a strong time in the 200 freestyle. Sampson is a multi-time FHSAA State Championships finalist, coming in 4th place in the 500 freestyle in 2021 at the 4A (large schools) meet and 2nd place in the 500 freestyle plus 3rd place in the 200 freestyle at the 3A (mid-sized schools) meet in 2019. 

Best Times: 

• 1650 Freestyle: 15:25.80
• 1000 freestyle: 9:11.31
• 500 freestyle: 4:22.72
• 200 freestyle: 1:38.07

With his commitment to Florida State, Sampson joins a large in-state group for the Seminoles. Currently, 11 out of 41 swimmers on the Florida State roster are in-state. In addition, 4 out of the 7 recruits from the high school class of 2022 are from Florida, including Sampson. 

As a freshman, Sampson should already be one of Florida State’s top distance swimmers. His best time in the 1650 freestyle would have ranked 4th on the roster last season, with one of the swimmers ahead of him, Sam Budd, graduating out of the program. In addition, Sampson would have held the 5th fastest time on the roster in the 500 freestyle. Though the 1000 freestyle often isn’t contested at the NCAA Division 1 level, his time would have been the second fastest on the roster last season as well. 

At the conference level, Sampson would have contributed as a scorer in both the 500 freestyle and the 1650 freestyle at the 2022 ACC Championships. In the 500 freestyle, he would have made the C-final, while his best time in the 1650 would have rendered him 15th-place in the timed-final event. At those Championships, the Florida State men finished 6th out of 12 teams, scoring 676 points total. In the distance events, the team was led by sophomore Yordan Yanchev, who finished 9th in the 500 freestyle (4:14.16). Yanchev competed in the same race at the 2022 NCAA Championships, finishing 29th overall. Florida State did not score at that meet, but sent several swimmers to compete. 

With his commitment, Sampson joins Jack Hall, Jaka Pušnik, Jaydon Cunningham, Jokūbas Keblys, Sam Bork, Luke Maggiore, and Utku Kurtdere in Florida State’s class of 2026.

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