2025 YMCA Short Course National Championships
- March 31 – April 4, 2025
- Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Prelims/Finals
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results on Meet Mobile: 2025 YMCA Short Course Nationals
The annual YMCA Short Course Nationals will take place at the Greensboro Aquatic Center next week, and several big names will be in attendance. Most notably, 2024 Paris Olympian Thomas Heilman will be competing. This will be his first time swimming at this meet since 2022, as he was absent last year, and in 2023, he opted to attend the USA Swimming National Junior Team training camp in Colorado Springs, which was the same weekend as YNats. Throughout his career, Heilman has a total of 8 YMCA National titles (including relays), all of which were earned during his sole time competing at this meet, in 2022.
Heilman, who represents Cavalier Aquatics/Piedmont Family YMCA and is committed to Virginia for this fall, is currently set to swim the 100 fly, 400 IM, 200 IM, and 200 fly. He is the top seed in all of his events, with his times in the 100 fly, 200 fly, and 200 IM coming from his otherworldly performance at Winter Juniors this past December, where he broke the 17-18 NAG records in the 100/200 fly. The butterfly events are also what he swam at the Olympics, as he finished 1st in the 200 fly and 2nd in the 100 fly at Trials.
On the womens’ side, the biggest name highlighting the psych sheets is Stanford commit Alana Berlin. At the Wisconsin YMCA states this past week, Berlin swam a 23.71 backstroke split leading off Schroeder’s 200 medley relay and split a 21.56 50 free to achor the 200 free relay. Her performance at states indicates some big drops this coming week, and she enters as the top seed in the 100 back, 100 free, 100 fly, 200 IM, and 100 breast.
Berlin’s teammate, Maggie Dickinson, is another up-and-comer to keep an eye on. Although just a freshman, she’s the top seed in the 200 back (1:55.88), seeded second behind Berlin in the 100 back (53.28) and 100 free (50.44), and the #8 seed in the 50 free (23.36).
Wisconsin commit Molly Yacoviello, the defending champion in the 100 and 200 breast, will look to defend her titles. She is currently top seed in the 200 breast (2:10.87), 400 IM (4:16.13), 200 fly (1:59.69), and seeded 4th in the 100 breast (1:01.99)
Other exciting races to watch out for include the mens’ backstrokes, where Cal commit Kenny Barnicle and Virginia Tech commit Connor Johnson will look to battle it out. Barnicle of Greater Somerset County YMCA is the top seed in the 200 at 1:44.82, while Johnson of Lakeland Hills YMCA is seeded second at 1:45.01. The two are flipped in the 100 back, as Barnicle is seeded second (47.71) while Johnson is seeded first (47.64). Luke Lamb, a Navy commit, sits at the #3 seed in both events.
Seth Morgan of Rocky Mount Family YMCA holds the top seeds in both breaststroke events, entering with a time of 54.11 in the 100 and 1:58.99 in the 200. He has made impressive strides over the past year, as he finished 21st and 13th, respectively, in those two events at this meet just last year.
Other top seeds (women):
- 1000 free: Meghan Ayres, CA-Y – 9:58.05
- 1650 free: Meghan Ayres, CA-Y – 16:36.88
- 200 free: Colleen Bull, GSCY – 1:47.87
- 50 free: Anne Dickinson, SSTY – 23.16
- 500 free: Anne Dickinson, SSTY – 4:48.99
Other top seeds (men):
- 1000 free: Brayden King, CA-Y – 9:18.90
- 1650 free: Brayden King, CA-Y – 15:34.02
- 50 free: Jonathon Hoole, RAYS! – 19.93
- 100 free: Preston Kessler, INDY – 43.28
- 200 free: Will Browne, CA-Y – 1:36.54
- 500 free: Ethan Schutten, SSTY – 4:22.79
The hype around Heilman has really died down. At 15, he was one of the most impressive young phenoms in the world, but he’s 18 now, didn’t do very well in Paris (no individual finals), and has been completely surpassed by Kharun (a guy who had very similar results to him back in 2023).
Kharun won 2 Olympic medals at 19 years old, but the best Heilman can hope for now is to medal in 2028, when he would be 21 years old – a common age for male Olympians. I thought he was supposed to break Phelp’s 200 fly American record when he was still under 18? That certainly didn’t pan out!
Who said he was “supposed to” break the American record in the 2 fly before 18?? You just made that up 😂😂
And what do you mean “completely surpassed by Kharun”, Ilya is 2 years older than him. Get it together bro
Well he should have been more careful with his birth year! Everyone know you gotta plan when to pop out otherwise you can’t go after Phelps Olympics at 15 record!!
Shucks, he wasn’t able to be one of the best Americans of all time before he turned 18. His career is OVER.
Does Thomas know that UVA got 33rd yet?
Well he single handily will outscore that by himself next year
Based off what proven Desorbo men’s team?
Heilman? More like Heisman! Or Wild-man!! 🤣
Washedman
Honest question, do you think any of the Virginia commits will reconsider their commitment after the dismal performance by the UVA men at NCAAs? I was never a high level recruit, but if I was, I would reconsider my commitment because I would not want to risk wasting my potential.
Can you imagine being at NCAAs and your coach is still posting about the women’s team… heck even posting about the women after IVY league, ARMY, and in state rival VT score more points.
Insanely good and large incoming class for Virginia men, the days of domination by Virginia men are coming quickly. Don’t think they’ll have the depth to challenge Texas (and I’m probably dead wrong) but a top 10 finish is likely. Without diving they are able to grab a few fast men from the portal and right now, and if you are in the portal because you were cut by an SEC team with the 22 roster cap like Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, you are likely looking at other conferences instead of another SEC placement…and with this incoming class, Virginia would be looking like a great place to land! It will be interesting to see if the roster cap hurts those… Read more »
The stronger incoming class just means more wasted potential…
Not sure why this got so many downvotes. It’s a very valid question and I wouldn’t necessarily doubt that many of them are questioning their own decisions.
I predict heilman goes fast here, seems like a good last taper meet before trials
Does he need to taper here? (Serious question)…He could swim through this meet pretty easily without needing a lot of rest…save it up for a bigger meet?
He could, but this is the time of year that American age groupers rip it at a SCY championship meet. Would be a good weekend to gauge where he’s at relative to past spring championship seasons and also with respect to the NCAA swimmers.
It’s his last high school scy meet… why not
Doesn’t need to but he might want to. It’s his last big meet in high school with all of his teammates. It’d probably be fun to go out with a huge meet and break a bunch of records.
No, but I figure he might want to
He’s not tapered for this meet
How do you know?
Swimmer01 is him