Each summer, college swimming fans look forward to recruiting – the lifeblood of any NCAA swim program. Since 2012, we’ve been ranking down the top NCAA prospects in the nation from each recruiting class. But sports are inherently unpredictable, and even the most sure-fire prospect can go awry or completely change their role over four years.
As we do each year, we’ll look back at the high school class of 2017, which just finished four years of college eligibility this spring.
First, a few notes:
- Most of the data we’re tracking here deals with NCAA scoring. Obviously, some swimmers are great assets for their teams in dual meets and conference competition without ever being national factors. While we don’t discount the impact of those types of swimmers, the difference in competition between various teams’ dual meet schedules and conference meets makes NCAA scoring the best “apples to apples” comparisons between swimmers.
- Relays are another point of contention, as a swimmer in a strong program has more opportunity for NCAA relays, though they also have more competition for those relay spots. We’ve left relay results out of the data below, except where specifically indicated. That, too, gives us a more fair comparison between athletes.
- We don’t rank diving recruits, but we have started to track individual diving scoring, which is helpful in determining how much of an impact a diver is likely to have on NCAA finish.
- We did our best to scour NCAA results over the past four-plus years, but it’s certainly possible we made a mistake in compiling our data. If you spot an error, please respectfully let us know in the comment section so we can update our work!
2021 Note: Between last year’s canceled NCAA meet, the resulting added eligibility for athletes, and the number of entire programs and conferences taking redshirt seasons for 2021, some of these athletes may have years of scoring still to come, and there are some continuing discussions on which classes each athlete belongs in, particularly with international athletes.
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We only include domestic recruits in our recruit rankings, as it’s often harder to predict if and when an international recruit will join the NCAA, and which class they should be ranked with. However, we’ve gone back through and tallied up all individual scorers that roughly fit into this class – international and domestic.
REVISITING OUR TOP 20
Check out this post for our analysis of the top 20 recruits in the high school class of 2017. Bear in mind that this was posted in July of 2016, when these swimmers were high school juniors, and looks much different with the benefit of hindsight.
Here’s a look at our top 10 recruits, plus how many individual points they scored at NCAAs in each of their four years:
Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Points | 2021 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
1 | Ryan Hoffer | Cal | 131.5 | 26.5 | 45 | — | 60 | 53 |
2 | Sean Grieshop | Cal | 90 | 10 | 49 | — | 31 | 3 |
3 | Matthew Hirschberger | Stanford | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | no invite | |
4 | Camden Murphy | Georgia | 55 | 0 | 25 | — | 30 | 17 |
5 | Michael Taylor | Florida | 0 | 0 | redshirt | — | — | |
6 | Austin Katz | Texas | 68 | 35 | 17 | — | 16 | 29 |
7 | Grant House | Arizona State | 9.5 | 3 | 6.5 | — | redshirt | redshirt |
8 | Jake Sannem | USC/Texas | 20 | no invite | 5 | — | 15 | |
9 | Paul DeLakis | Ohio State | 56 | 6 | 27 | — | 23 | 42 |
10 | Christopher Yeager | Texas | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | no invite | roster cap cut |
11 | Bryce Mefford | Cal | 78 | 26 | 16 | — | 36 | |
12 | Sam Pomajevich | Texas | 44 | 24 | 0 | — | 20 | 21 |
13 | Brennan Pastorek | Stanford | 4 | 4 | 0 | — | no invite | 2 |
14 | Alex Liang | Stanford | 9 | 0 | 5 | — | 4 | |
15 | Trenton Julian | Cal | 96 | 12 | 36 | — | 48 | 33 |
16 | Daniel Carr | Cal | 70 | 13 | 32 | — | 25 | 41 |
17 | Michael Zarian | Harvard | 0 | no invite | 0 | — | redshirt | |
18 | Nicolas Albiero | Louisville | 110 | 22 | 37 | — | 51 | 52.5 |
19 | Spencer Rowe | Auburn | 0 | no invite | 0 | — | no invite | |
20 | Corban Rawls | Harvard | 0 | no invite | no invite | — | redshirt |
The hits:
- “Hoffer is a tailor-made NCAA blue chip recruit,” we wrote back in 2016. Even if his 100 free didn’t improve much in college, Ryan Hoffer clearly lived up to that label. He was the highest-scoring swimmer in the class – by a longshot – and won 4 individual and 3 relay titles over his career.
- Cal got five of our top 20 recruits, and every single one produced. In fact, all five wound up in the top 8 in the entire class (divers included) in individual scoring. Trenton Julian was a standout, scoring 96 points as the #15 recruit. Sean Grieshop scored nearly 100 individually. Both Bryce Mefford and Daniel Carr outperformed their ranks.
- All-in-all, this was a pretty great class across the board. Three men in the class won individual NCAA titles, and all three were top-20 recruits (#1 Hoffer, #6 Katz, #18 Albiero).
- Nicolas Albiero had perhaps the best rise of any of our ranked recruits, moving from the #18 prospect to the #2 overall swimming scorer in the class.
The misses:
- Only 6 of our top 20 didn’t score points individually – and that’s in a class that had only three NCAA opportunities with the 2020 cancellation. Two of our low-end ranked recruits swam for Harvard and missed the 2021 season when the Ivy League canceled winter sports as well.
- There were two big misses at the top. Michael Taylor was an elite backstroke prospect – in fact, we recently included him as one of the top 50 recruits of the past decade. Health issues kept him from competing at the college level – he had at least six surgeries for ulcerative collitis.
- Hirschberger was a NAG-record-breaking distance swimmer out of high school. He earned an NCAA invite as a sophomore, but didn’t score.
- Yeager was a roster cap casualty for Texas in 2020, but earned three NCAA invites in his four years.
OTHER IMPACTFUL RECRUITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL RECRUITING CLASS OF 2016
Of course, not every contributor comes from our top 20 list. Some swimmers develop extremely well in college. Some swimmers slip under our radar, or don’t really show their ability until their senior year of high school, after our rankings come out.
We dug through NCAA results to find the best American swimmers from this class to not appear on our top 10 list. Again, it’s not always easy to account for redshirt years, gap years or mistakes in an athlete’s listed class each season. So if we forgot anyone, respectfully let us know in the comments.
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Points | 2021 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
Brooks Fail | Arizona | 58 | 16 | — | 42 | 25.5 | |
Zach Yeadon | Notre Dame/Cal | 56 | 27 | 7 | — | 22 | 33 |
Alvin Jiang | UNC/Texas | 31 | — | 31 | 25 | ||
Keefer Barnum | Virginia | 26 | — | 26 | 2 | ||
Clark Beach | Florida | 25 | 13 | — | 12 | 12 | |
Blaise Vera | Pitt | 17 | — | 17 | 9 | ||
Mark Theall | UNLV/Texas A&M | 16 | 13 | — | 3 | 27 | |
Chris Staka | Alabama/Texas | 10 | — | 10 | 6 | ||
Johannes Calloni | Stanford | 9 | 9 | — | |||
Cameron Auchinachie | Denver | 7 | 7 | — | 6 | ||
Eric Knowles | NC State | 6 | 6 | — | 4 | ||
David Dixon | West Virginia | 5 | — | 5 | 5 | ||
JohnThomas Larson | Texas | 5 | — | 5 | |||
Matt Otto | Virginia | 4 | — | 4 | |||
Greg Reed | Georgia | 4 | 2 | — | 2 | 11 | |
Trent Pellini | Purdue | 4 | 2 | — | 2 | 6 | |
Sam Iida | Arizona | 4 | 4 | — | |||
Jacob Steele | Indiana | 3 | — | 3 | |||
Jack Dalmolin | Arizona State/Georgia | 2 | — | 2 | |||
Robby Giller | Virginia | 2 | 2 | — | |||
Will Roberts | Michigan | 1 | — | 1 | |||
Gabe Castano | Penn State | 0 | — | 14 | |||
Sam Schilling | Virginia | 0 | — | 1 |
Standouts:
- Interestingly enough, a few of the ranked distance swimmers (Hirschberger, Yeager) dropped out of scoring, the top unranked recruits were distance swimmers who rose to fill their spots. Arizona’s Brooks Fail was a standout, scoring 58 total points including 42 as a senior. Zach Yeadon scored 34 in two years for Notre Dame, then 22 more in his senior year with Cal.
- Here’s a quick look at some lifetime-bests among those four from when we ranked them in 2016 to their freshmen college seasons:
- Hirschberger: 4:16.4/14:51—–> 4:16.4/14:51
- Yeager: 4:24.3/14:55———–> 4:19.4/14:48
- Fail: 4:26.2/15:15————–>4:14.8/14:46.7
- Yeadon: 4:23.01/15:09———>4:12.7/14:34
- Here’s a quick look at some lifetime-bests among those four from when we ranked them in 2016 to their freshmen college seasons:
- A bunch of these unranked recruits transferred at some point in their careers. Yeadon scored for both of his collegiate programs, but all of the others only scored for their second programs. That includes Alvin Jiang, Mark Theall, and Chris Staka.
International
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Points | 2021 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
Caio Pumputis | Georgia Tech | 66 | 41 | — | 25 | 2 | |
Hugo Gonzalez | Auburn/Cal | 49 | 7 | redshirt | — | 42 | 35 |
Ricardo Vargas | Michigan | 45 | 23 | 22 | — | 21 | |
Evgenii Somov | Louisville | 42 | 12 | 15 | — | 15 | 9 |
Gus Borges | Michigan | 16 | 2 | — | 14 | 11 | |
Brandonn Almeida | South Carolina | 15 | 15 | — | |||
Robert Glinta | USC | 14 | 14 | — | |||
Gabriel Fantoni | Indiana | 11 | 7 | — | 4 | 17 | |
Christian Ferraro | Georgia Tech | 7 | 1 | — | 6 | 4 | |
Sam Tornqvist | Virginia Tech | 5 | — | 5 | 7 | ||
Nikola Miljenic | Indiana/USC | 3 | — | 3 | |||
Daniel Sos | Louisville | 3 | 3 | — | |||
Valdas Abaliksta | UNC | 1 | — | 1 | 0.33 | ||
Kayky Mota | Miami/Tennessee | 1 | — | 1 | |||
Bruno Blaskovic | Indiana | 1 | 1 | — | 38.5 | ||
Carter Swift | Arizona State | 0 | — | 12 |
Standouts:
- Hugo Gonzalez scored 49 in just two NCAA meets – he could still have another year of eligibility.
- This was a great international class of breaststrokers and IMers. Caio Pumputis was the top-scoring international recruit, and Evgenii Somov was a big-time breaststroke prospect. That filled in some for the U.S.-based recruiting group, which didn’t have many breaststrokers in the top 20.
Diving
Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Points | 2021 NCAA Points |
Jordan Windle | Texas | 144 | 45 | 47 | — | 52 |
Andrew Capobianco | Indiana | 94 | 33 | 20 | — | 41 |
Zach Cooper | Miami (FL) | 43 | 12 | 15 | — | 16 |
Gregory Duncan | UNC/Purdue | 36 | 6 | 16 | — | 14 |
Jacob Siler | Ohio State | 26 | — | 26 | ||
Joseph Canova | Ohio State | 18 | 12 | — | 6 | |
Jonathan Suckow | Columbia | 14 | 14 | — | redshirt | |
Chase Lane | Kentucky | 9 | — | 9 | ||
Kurtis Matthews | Texas A&M | 8 | 5 | 3 | — | |
Joshua Davidson | Florida State | 3 | 3 |
Standouts:
- Here’s one to rekindle all of last week’s impassioned debates: the top scorer in this class wasn’t Hoffer… it was diver Jordan Windle, who scored 144 points in three NCAA appearances.
- This was an incredible diving class. Windle, Andrew Capobianco, and Brandon Loschiavo all won individual NCAA titles. Zach Cooper was also a top-20 individual NCAA scorer in this class.
All Individual Scorers In the Class
(Ranked recruits are listed with their 2014 rank. International recruits are listed with “INTL” and unranked recruits with “UNR.” Diving recruits are listed with “DIVE”)
Final Rank | 2017 Rank | Name | College Team | Total NCAA Points | 2018 NCAA Points | 2019 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Points | 2021 NCAA Points | 2020 NCAA Psych Sheet Points |
1 | DIVE | Jordan Windle | Texas | 144 | 45 | 47 | — | 52 | |
2 | 1 | Ryan Hoffer | Cal | 131.5 | 26.5 | 45 | — | 60 | 53 |
3 | 18 | Nicolas Albiero | Louisville | 110 | 22 | 37 | — | 51 | 52.5 |
4 | 15 | Trenton Julian | Cal | 96 | 12 | 36 | — | 48 | 33 |
5 | DIVE | Andrew Capobianco | Indiana | 94 | 33 | 20 | — | 41 | |
6 | 2 | Sean Grieshop | Cal | 90 | 10 | 49 | — | 31 | 3 |
7 | 11 | Bryce Mefford | Cal | 78 | 26 | 16 | — | 36 | |
8 | 16 | Daniel Carr | Cal | 70 | 13 | 32 | — | 25 | 41 |
9 | 6 | Austin Katz | Texas | 68 | 35 | 17 | — | 16 | 29 |
10 | INTL | Caio Pumputis | Georgia Tech | 66 | 41 | — | 25 | 2 | |
11 | UNR | Brooks Fail | Arizona | 58 | 16 | — | 42 | 25.5 | |
12 | 9 | Paul DeLakis | Ohio State | 56 | 6 | 27 | — | 23 | 42 |
12 | UNR | Zach Yeadon | Notre Dame/Cal | 56 | 27 | 7 | — | 22 | 33 |
14 | 4 | Camden Murphy | Georgia | 55 | 0 | 25 | — | 30 | 17 |
15 | INTL | Hugo Gonzalez | Auburn/Cal | 49 | 7 | redshirt | — | 42 | 35 |
16 | INTL | Ricardo Vargas | Michigan | 45 | 23 | 22 | — | 21 | |
17 | 12 | Sam Pomajevich | Texas | 44 | 24 | 0 | — | 20 | 21 |
18 | DIVE | Zach Cooper | Miami (FL) | 43 | 12 | 15 | — | 16 | |
19 | INTL | Evgenii Somov | Louisville | 42 | 12 | 15 | — | 15 | 9 |
20 | DIVE | Gregory Duncan | UNC/Purdue | 36 | 6 | 16 | — | 14 | |
21 | UNR | Alvin Jiang | UNC/Texas | 31 | — | 31 | 25 | ||
22 | DIVE | Jacob Siler | Ohio State | 26 | — | 26 | |||
22 | UNR | Keefer Barnum | Virginia | 26 | — | 26 | 2 | ||
24 | UNR | Clark Beach | Florida | 25 | 13 | — | 12 | 12 | |
25 | 8 | Jake Sannem | USC/Texas | 20 | no invite | 5 | — | 15 | |
26 | DIVE | Joseph Canova | Ohio State | 18 | 12 | — | 6 | ||
27 | UNR | Blaise Vera | Pitt | 17 | — | 17 | 9 | ||
28 | INTL | Gus Borges | Michigan | 16 | 2 | — | 14 | 11 | |
28 | UNR | Mark Theall | UNLV/Texas A&M | 16 | 13 | — | 3 | 27 | |
30 | INTL | Brandonn Almeida | South Carolina | 15 | 15 | — | |||
31 | DIVE | Jonathan Suckow | Columbia | 14 | 14 | — | redshirt | ||
31 | INTL | Robert Glinta | USC | 14 | 14 | — | |||
33 | INTL | Gabriel Fantoni | Indiana | 11 | 7 | — | 4 | 17 | |
34 | UNR | Chris Staka | Alabama/Texas | 10 | — | 10 | 6 | ||
35 | 7 | Grant House | Arizona State | 9.5 | 3 | 6.5 | — | redshirt | redshirt |
36 | DIVE | Chase Lane | Kentucky | 9 | — | 9 | |||
36 | 14 | Alex Liang | Stanford | 9 | 0 | 5 | — | 4 | |
36 | UNR | Johannes Calloni | Stanford | 9 | 9 | — | |||
39 | DIVE | Kurtis Matthews | Texas A&M | 8 | 5 | 3 | — | ||
40 | INTL | Christian Ferraro | Georgia Tech | 7 | 1 | — | 6 | 4 | |
40 | UNR | Cameron Auchinachie | Denver | 7 | 7 | — | 6 | ||
42 | UNR | Eric Knowles | NC State | 6 | 6 | — | 4 | ||
43 | INTL | Sam Tornqvist | Virginia Tech | 5 | — | 5 | 7 | ||
43 | UNR | David Dixon | West Virginia | 5 | — | 5 | 5 | ||
45 | 13 | Brennan Pastorek | Stanford | 4 | 4 | 0 | — | no invite | 2 |
45 | UNR | Matt Otto | Virginia | 4 | — | 4 | |||
45 | UNR | Greg Reed | Georgia | 4 | 2 | — | 2 | 11 | |
45 | UNR | Trent Pellini | Purdue | 4 | 2 | — | 2 | 6 | |
45 | UNR | Sam Iida | Arizona | 4 | 4 | — | |||
50 | UNR | Jacob Steele | Indiana | 3 | — | 3 | |||
50 | INTL | Nikola Miljenic | Indiana/USC | 3 | — | 3 | |||
50 | DIVE | Joshua Davidson | Florida State | 3 | 3 | ||||
50 | INTL | Daniel Sos | Louisville | 3 | 3 | — | |||
54 | UNR | Jack Dalmolin | Arizona State/Georgia | 2 | — | 2 | |||
54 | UNR | Robby Giller | Virginia | 2 | 2 | — | |||
56 | INTL | Kayky Mota | Miami/Tennessee | 1 | — | 1 | |||
56 | UNR | Will Roberts | Michigan | 1 | — | 1 | |||
56 | INTL | Valdas Abaliksta | UNC | 1 | — | 1 | 0.33 | ||
56 | INTL | Bruno Blaskovic | Indiana | 1 | 1 | — | 38.5 | ||
60 | UNR | Gabe Castano | Penn State | 0 | — | 14 | |||
60 | INTL | Carter Swift | Arizona State | 0 | — | 12 | |||
60 | UNR | Sam Schilling | Virginia | 0 | — | 1 |
BONUS: THE SUPER-SENIORS
Usually, we have a handful of holdovers from previous classes who sat out with redshirts. This year, we have two:
Stanford’s Grant Shoults scored as a freshman (26 in 2017) and sophomore (18 in 2018), then missed 2019 on a medical redshirt. After the 2020 cancellation, he returned to score 11 points this season, bringing him to 55 for his career. That makes him the top scorer among our ranked recruits in the class of 2016, where he was the #3 prospect.
Georgia’s Javier Acevedo was the #4 international scorer in that class through his junior year. He sat out 2020 on an Olympic redshirt, but returned this year to score a career-high 34 for the Bulldogs. That makes him the #2 international scorer in the class, albeit with one more NCAA meet than anyone else in that class.
Class of 2016 recruits revisited (as of last year)
ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKS
Analysis as of: | Spring 2021 | Spring 2020 | Spring 2019 | Spring 2018 | Spring 2017 |
Class of 2020 | After Freshman Year | ||||
Class of 2019 | After Sophomore Year | After Freshman Year | |||
Class of 2018 | After Junior Year | After Sophomore Year | After Freshman Year | ||
Class of 2017 | After Senior Year | After Junior Year | After Sophomore Year | After Freshman Year | |
Class of 2016 | After Senior Year | After Junior Year | |||
Class of 2015 | After Senior Year | ||||
Class of 2014 | After Senior Year | ||||
Class of 2013 | After Senior Year |
why does it seem like Stanford struggles to develop top end talent?
legendary senior class for Cal
It seems like Gunnar Bentz is still the only one who has managed to pull off 12 A finals over the 4 years (can someone add in another swimmer who has done it if possible. Might be forgetting someone). Lasco and Foster seem primed to do it though.
There are plenty who have done it, Murphy and Seliskar are the most recent I believe.
Off the top of my head Pablo Morales where he won 11/12 along with Nolan where he won a couple. I’m sure there are more as well.
The Bears absolutely crushed it with this group of men.
Wow this is a loaded class compared to last year’s class in terms of ranked recruits
This Cal class has to be one of the greatest of all time. 487.5 points without an NCAA meet. I wonder if any recent classes can compare? Caeleb’s class with Jan and Mark or Licon/Conger/Smith?
And remember, Jan didn’t even start at Florida – he spent a year as a mid-D/400 IMer at VT.
This NC State team with Curtiss, Hayes, Ponti, Hoover, et al are going to be close if everybody pans out.
Were Crocker, Hansen and Piersol in the same class at Texas?
Piersol is younger and went pro before he did four years.
That Northwestern crew with Grevers, Alexandrov, Bubz..
I think Bubolz and Barbić were the year below
Barbic started at Washington and transferred to N’Western.
Conger dropped a couple indiv events too
Dressel is what everyone thought Hoffer would be in SCY.
If you’re EXPECTING someone to be a once in a generation swimmer, you’re gonna be disappointed. Hoffer is an absolute beast, not sure how anyone could disappointed by him
People did kind of expect it though since their high school times were close. Not sure why everyone is downvoting hjones’ post, people were freaking out over Hoffer coming out of HS just like they did Dressel
I’m a huge fan of these pieces. great job!