2023 Women’s NCAAs: How Did Our Top 20 Recruits Perform As Freshmen?

We’ve already done a deep dive into our recruiting archives, looking at how the top 20 recruits from the high school class of 2019 did after four NCAA seasons. Now it’s time to look back at a more recent recruit ranking: the current year’s freshmen:

Relevant links:

• Way-Too-Early Sophomore Ranks, Class of 2022 Girls
• Junior Ranks, Class of 2022 Girls
• Senior Re-Ranks, Class of 2022 Girls

Naturally, this analysis has a far smaller sample size than the lookback of how the class of 2018 fared over their entire career, so it’s much more difficult to read too much into these numbers. Still, it’s useful to look at which first-year NCAA swimmers had the best performances relative to their recruiting ranks.

As always, our notes on this data:

• The data included is only individual scoring at NCAAs. That’s not an exact measure of an athlete’s contribution to a program: many of these swimmers (and others not listed) were relay scorers at NCAAs, scored significant points at conference meets and provided great leadership and culture-building for their programs. This data isn’t a perfect analysis of the best recruits – it’s merely a quick look at the data we can compile.
• A college swimming career includes four years of eligibility, and sometimes more. Revisiting scoring after one year is an incomplete analysis of a swimmer’s career – this is not the final word on any of these prospects, and we will revisit this data over the next three seasons to get a more complete evaluation.

The ranks listed below are from our re-rank last summer – they are not current ranks of NCAA athletes. We also do not rank international athletes as recruits, as it’s hard to predict if and when they’ll come to the U.S., and which class with which to include them.

TOP 20 RANKED RECRUITS

HM=Honorable mention

The Hits:

• Claire Curzan was a slam-dunk in the #1 ranking slot, and fulfilled those expectations this season with a 51-point performance in her freshman year, highlighted by her individual title victory in the 200 backstroke. Curzan also placed third in the 100 back and fourth in the 100 fly, and produced some of the fastest splits in the field for Stanford on four relays.
• As an individual Olympic gold medalist, Lydia Jacoby was arguably underrated as our #3 ranked recruit in the class, but the Alaskan native hadn’t fully matched her long course abilities in short course at the time. That’s certainly no longer the case, as Jacoby had a very strong SCY season for the Longhorns, culminating with an NCAA title in the 100 breaststroke. Jacoby also finished the season ranked fourth in the nation in the 200 breast, though she added time and placed 11th at NCAAs.
• NC State’s Kennedy Noble placed fifth in the 200 back at NCAAs after winning the ACC title in the event in February. She also hit lifetime bests in the 100 back and 200 IM at nationals, scoring in all three of her individual events in her first year.
• The fourth-highest scorer of the class was 15th-ranked Kaelyn Gridley of Duke, as the Illinois native notched lifetime bests in the 100 breast (58.76) and 200 breast (2:06.26) to place 10th and sixth, respectively, in her NCAA Championship debut.
• In addition to Curzan, Stanford picked up 42 points from freshmen in the form of Charlotte Hook, Kayla Wilson and Lucy Bell, who all made at least one ‘A’ final. Although second-ranked Hook was only the seventh-highest scorer among top-20 recruits, she was the lone underclassman in the 200 fly final at NCAAs, placing sixth, and has a bright future there. Wilson had a breakthrough fourth-place finish in the 200 free and Bell scored in both IMs.

The Misses:

• Fifth-ranked Justina Kozan was unable to near her best times in her first year at USC, and her highest finish at NCAAs ended up being 23rd in the 400 IM. Her PB from 2019 would’ve made the ‘A’ final.
• Blair Stoneburg didn’t end up scoring for Wisconsin in her first year, though she was solid with a pair of top-eight finishes at Big Tens. She neared her best times in the 200 and 1650 free, but was a few seconds short in her best event, the 500, where an NCAA ‘A’ final would’ve been in her wheelhouse.
• The lone swimmer inside the top 20 recruits that didn’t compete at the NCAA Championships was Claire Tuggle, who had fast enough times but wasn’t one of the 17 swimmers selected to the UVA roster. Tuggle has since entered the NCAA transfer portal, and having notched personal bests in the 200, 500 and 1650 free this season, she appears to be on the upswing moving forward.
• Another UVA swimmer, Carly Novelline, had a solid freshman campaign that included a lifetime best in the 100 fly (51.92) and a fourth-place finish in the 100 back at ACCs, ultimately finishing about four-tenths shy of scoring in the latter.

UNRANKED RECRUITS

And of course, we’ll include everyone’s favorite part: which unranked recruits earned NCAA invites and scored points this season – both domestic up-and-comers and international pickups.

DOMESTIC:

• Louisville’s Julia Dennis really came into her own in the 50 free in the final few months of the season, breaking 22 seconds for the first time at ACCs (21.83) before getting down to 21.73 at NCAAs to earn a second swim and ultimately place 12th.
• Stanford’s Natalie Mannion hit a best time of 4:40.54 in the 500 free prelims at NCAAs to earn a second swim, going on to place 16th.

INTERNATIONAL: 

• South African native Aimee Canny had a standout freshman season with Virginia, placing third in the 200 free and 14th in the 100 free at NCAAs while also leading off the victorious 800 free relay and anchoring the winning 400 medley relay.
• Turkey’s Deniz Ertan won a pair of ACC Championship titles in the 500 free (4:38.04) and 1650 free (15:55.77) in her freshman year for Georgia Tech. She ended up being the Yellow Jackets’ lone NCAA scorer, placing 15th in the mile.

DIVING: 

• Six first-year divers put up points at NCAAs, led by Indiana’s Skyler Liu and Minnesota’s Viviana Del Angel. Liu is listed as a sophomore but competed for the Hoosiers for the first time at Big Tens. Both she and Del Angel managed to finish in the top four on platform while also scoring in the 3-meter event.

ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKS