2025 NAIA National Championships: Day 2 Ups/Downs

2025 NAIA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championships

• Dates: Wednesday, March 5–Saturday, March 8
• Times: Prelims 9AM Eastern, Finals 5PM Eastern
• Location: Elkhart Aquatic Center, Elkhart, IN
• Defending Champions: Keiser women (3x); St. Thomas men (1x)
• Championship Program
• Post-cut Psych Sheet
• Quaifiers per School: Women ׀ Men
• Schedule of Events
• Live Results on Meet Mobile
• Live Stream (free)
• Championship Central

Day 2

For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of two finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.

With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers and divers in the A final, “Down” to B finalists.

Women’s Meet

Women’s Top 10 After Day 1

1. Keiser 80
2. Lindsey Wilson 68
3. Cumberlands 60
4. Bethel (IN) 54
5. Olivet Nazarene 48
6. SCAD 46
7. Union Commonwealth / Milligan 42
8. –
9. Indiana Wesleyan 36
10. St Thomas / St Ambrose 30

St Thomas had a big morning on Thursday in Elkhart, beating their psych sheet seedings by 25.5 points with more finalists than expected in all three individual swimming events. Keiser also had a better-than-expected morning, thanks largely to their six finalists in the 50 free.

St Thomas would have likely been closer to Keiser at the end of Day 2 had they not disqualified one of their two relays yesterday. Still, they managed to remain ahead of Lindsey Wilson and Cumberlands and are projected to finish in second place behind Keiser tonight.

Cumberlands (-16) and SCAD Savannah (-15) were off by double digits, making the race for 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the team standings much tighter.

Day 2 Ups/Downs – Women

Scoring Day 2 Prelims (plus 200 Free Relay as seeded)

Projected Day 2 Scores – Women

Men’s Meet

Men’s Top 10 After Day 1

1. Keiser 100
2. SCAD Savannah 64
3. Milligan 62
4. St Ambrose 61
5. William Carey 60
6. Cumberlands 56
7. The Master’s 48
8. Lindsey Wilson 42
9. Bethel (IN) 32
10. St Thomas / Aquinas 30

Keiser earned 4 “A” final spots in the 50 free, 2 in the 200 IM, and 1 in the 500 free for a total of 7. They also picked up 3 more spots in “B” finals to overwhelm the field on Thursday morning. This was expected, though, and with a projected psych sheet margin of 408 points over all other teams, it would have taken something extraordinary to dethrone the Seahawks this morning.

Milligan (+17.5), Cumberlands (+8.5), and SCAD Savannah (+7) all overperformed vis-à-vis the psych sheet and thus the battle for second place in the team standings is beginning to heat up.

Most of the men’s teams performed about as expected, but newcomer William Carey had a miss in the 500 free that will cost them double digits today.

Day 2 Ups/Downs – Men

Scoring Day 2 Prelims (plus 200 Free Relay as seeded)

Projected Day 2 Scores – Men