Middle-distance freestyler Emily Moser has verbally committed to the Louisville Cardinals. That makes her one of the rare Indiana recruits to escape the state boundaries to Kentucky so far this fall, breaking the home-state stranglehold.
“I really just loved the family atmosphere at Louisville. I felt so welcome and like I was already a part of the team just from the trip,” Moser said of her experience south of the border. “I also really loved the coaching staff. They seemed very engaged in the program and the swimmers. Y0u could tell they truly cared about the swimmers as students, as athletes, as people.”
Moser’s best two events are a 1:50.55 in the 200 yard free and a 4:48.80 in the 500 yard free, the latter of which is a Summer Junior Nationals cut. She also adds a 51.95 in the 100 yard free that could see her develop into a relay threat for the Cardinals.
To date, she’s been better in short course than long course (though that wasn’t always the case earlier in her career). She made a big jump in progress in her sophomore season, where she cut two seconds from her best time in the 200 free and cut five seconds from her 500 free.
She then made a smaller, but still significant, improvement in her 200 as a junior, and knocked another five-plus seconds from her 500 free time. She placed 2nd at the Indiana State Championship meet in the event as both a sophomore and a junior, with a huge improvement in the back-half of her race.
“I really just want to improve my times and make Fishers and Louisville proud schools,” Moser said of her goals as a senior. “Best times are definitely the goal.”
As a senior, she will have the chance to begin the season with the confidence of the improvements she’s made in the last two years, and with a better idea of her capability, and we could see more drops to come.
Louisville, though they don’t have any real big-time 500 freestylers, has a deep group that included last year a 4:45 from freshman Abbie Houck and 4:46 from freshman Andrea Kneppers. They both could be in that elite class by the time Moser arrives, and at the very least the team should have three individual scorers at the ACC Championships in that event.
Depending on what else develops in this year’s freshman class and next year’s, Moser could contend for a spot on the 800 free relay in her first year in Louisville as well.
Moser swims club for the Fishers Area Swimming Tigers and Fisher High School.