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Francesca Raimondi, a high school senior from Garden City, New York, has verbally committed to swim at Villanova University. Raimondi attends Manhasset High School and currently trains with the Long Island Aquatic Club. She also swims on Manhasset’s Varsity High School swim team.
Super excited to be announcing my verbal commitment to Villanova Swimming and Diving! Thank you so much to all my coaches and teammates who have helped me get to this point. Go Wildcats!!! @vu_swimming #nova25
Raimondi swims primarily freestyle and backstroke events, with her best event being the 200 backstroke. At the 2019 MR OB Section 8 Country Championship in early November of 2019, Raimondi swam a first-place time of 1:50.90 in the 200-yard free. She also swam a 52.88 in the 100-yard free, finishing 5th.
At the New York High School State Championship in Ithaca, NY in late November of 2019, Raimondi swam the 200-yard free (1:51.67) and the 500-yard free (4:59.65), with the time in the 500 free counting as a personal best. Her 200 free swim placed her 8th.
In February of 2020, Raimondi swam at the Metropolitan Senior Short Course Winter Championships. She was a finalist in the 200-yard freestyle (1:54.26), 500-yard freestyle (5:06.49), and the 200-yard backstroke (2:06.84). That was her last meet before the coronavirus quarantines shut down most of the country’s competition in mid-March.
Most recently, Raimondi is competing at the 2020 MR LIAC August Water meet hosted by the Long Island Aquatic Club. At the meet, held in long course meters, she swam the 50 free (28.37), 200 free (2:13.80), the 100 back (1:08.06), the 200 back (2:25.27), and the 400 free (4:42.95).
Francesca Raimondi’s best times include:
- 100 free SCY: 52.36
- 100 free LCM: 59.42
- 200 free SCY: 1:50.90
- 200 free LCM: 2:08.42
- 100 back SCY: 58.17
- 100 back LCM: 1:05.46
- 200 back SCY: 2:03.19
- 200 back LCM: 2:21.03
Raimondi’s 200 back time would place her 5th among Villanova’s backstrokers from the 2019-2020 season, and would have placed her in the B final at the Big East Championships. That’s an event where Villanova is particularly strong, led last year by Big East Champion Kelly Montesi, who swam 1:58.00 to take the title as only a sophomore.
The Villanova women as a team won their 7th-straight Big East title in 2020.
Raimondi will join Joshua Brown, Aubrey Bowles, Lainey Quinones, Pepper Ritchey, Henry Halloran, and Emily Zimmermann in the Villanova University men’s and women’s recruiting class of 2021.
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