2025 Women’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships
The pre-scratch psych sheets for the 2025 Women’s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships have been released after the conference championship meets wrapped up over the weekend.
This initial release of the psych sheets doesn’t tell us who has qualified for the meet, but does show which events swimmers have opted to enter and will allow us to score out the meet and project where the cutline will fall.
Official cutlines are usually released on Wednesday afternoon.
We’ll be breaking down some of the notable entries throughout the day. Those include:
- Gretchen Walsh (Virginia) – 50 free, 100 fly, 100 free
- Alex Walsh (Virginia) – 200 IM, 100 breast, 200 fly
- Claire Curzan (Virginia) – 50 free, 100 back, 200 back
- Katie Grimes (Virginia) – 500 free, 400 IM, 1650 free
- Torri Huske (Stanford) – 200 IM, 100 fly, 100 free
- Caroline Bricker (Stanford) – 200 IM, 400 IM, 200 fly
- Bella Sims (Florida) – 500 free, 100 back, 200 back
- Emma Weyant (Florida) – 500 free, 400 IM, 1650 free
It’s no surprise to see Gretchen Walsh enter the same events she did last year, coming in as a heavy favorite to make it four in a row in the 100 free and back-to-back titles in both the 50 free and 100 fly. She raced the 100 back at NCAAs in her first two seasons, and despite holding the U.S. Open Record in that event, is even better in the 100 fly.
Walsh will get to go head-to-head with Stanford’s Torri Huske in the 100 fly for the first time at NCAAs, as Huske took an Olympic redshirt year last season and Walsh raced the 100 back the previous two seasons. Huske won Olympic gold in the event this past summer with Walsh winning silver. At the recent ACC Championships, Huske set a new best time (48.52) en route to the title, while Walsh raced the 100 back—Walsh’s U.S. Open Record of 47.42 is still more than a second faster than Huske.
Walsh and Huske will also battle in the 100 free, while Huske’s third event will be the 200 IM, where she’ll race Gretchen’s older sister, Alex Walsh, who is the defending champion but finished .01 behind Huske when they last raced the event at NCAAs in 2023 (placing 2-3 behind Kate Douglass).
A. Walsh will race the 100 breast for the first time at NCAAs, though that was no surprise as she had previously said the 400 IM would no longer be on her championship program. Her only real decision coming in was if she would do the 200 fly or 200 breast on the final day of the meet, and she’s opted for the 200 fly, an event she won in 2022 and placed 2nd in 2023.
Defending champion Emma Sticklen holds the top seed in that event and will be tough to beat after producing five sub-1:50 swims this season.
Another notable event selection for Virginia was what freshman Katie Grimes would race in her first NCAA Championships. The 500 free and 400 IM were clearly her first two races, but recently said she “wasn’t sure” about the 1650 free as her third event, and was considering either the 200 back or 200 fly. However, she has entered the mile, and despite being seeded 9th, she’s the 5th-fastest performer of all-time with her PB of 15:26.17 from 2022. One note about her being seeded 9th is that she won’t swim with the fastest heat during the finals session, so she’ll have to try and set a time in the afternoon and wait and see if anyone can match it at night.
Texas’ Jillian Cox is the top seed in both the 1650 and 500 free, and recently set a best time of 15:30.33 in the mile at SECs to rank #8 all-time.
Coming off sweeping the SEC titles and setting new best times, Florida sophomore Bella Sims will race both backstroke events at NCAAs after she only raced the 200 last year and placed 3rd. Sims won the NCAA title in the 200 free as a freshman, but won’t defend the title this season. She will, however, defend her title in the 500 free, with an intriguing battle with club teammate Grimes (and Cox) forthcoming.
TOP SEEDS IN EACH EVENT
- 200 Medley Relay – Virginia, 1:31.53
- 800 Free Relay – Virginia, 6:44.13
- 500 Free – Jillian Cox, Texas, 4:30.68
- 200 IM – Alex Walsh, Virginia, 1:51.12
- 50 Free – Gretchen Walsh, Virginia, 20.60
- 200 Free Relay – Virginia, 1:24.03
- 400 IM – Katie Grimes, Virginia, 3:59.02
- 100 Fly – Gretchen Walsh, Virginia, 48.16
- 200 Free – Anna Peplowski, Indiana, 1:40.69
- 100 Breast – Alex Walsh, Virginia, 56.85
- 100 Back – Bella Sims, Florida, 48.97
- 400 Medley Relay – Virginia, 3:19.58
- 1650 Free – Jillian Cox, Texas, 15:30.33
- 200 Back – Claire Curzan, Virginia, 1:46.87
- 100 Free – Gretchen Walsh, Virginia, 45.20
- 200 Breast – Alex Walsh, Virginia, 2:02.01
- 200 Fly – Emma Sticklen, Texas, 1:49.69
- 400 Free Relay – Virginia, 3:07.59
INDIVIDUAL QUALIFIERS
The NCAA invites the same number of overall swimmers every year. 270 men and 322 women make the meet annually. Depending on how many of those 270/322 athletes qualify in multiple events, the numbers can range some as to how many entries in each event get invited.
The simple part: “A” qualifiers get in automatically. Hit an “A” cut, and you’re set. Then the NCAA fills in the remaining spots with the next-fastest “B” cuts.
Here’s a step-by-step process for how the NCAA selects the 270 men and 322 women for each year’s invite list:
1. 35 of the men’s spots and 41 of the women’s spots are set aside for divers, who qualify for the meet at zone competitions closer the NCAA Championships. That leaves 235 men’s spots and 281 for the women.
2. Every “A” cut put up this season is added.
3. The next fastest swimmers in each event are added until every event has the same number of entries. For example, if the 50 free were to have the most “A” cuts of any event with 10, then every other event would get swimmers with the top 10 fastest times in.
4. Finally, one entry is added to each event to keep the entries per event even. This process is repeated until all of the swimming spots (235 for men, 281 for women) are filled. Keep in mind that as more rows are added, swimmers will start to double and triple up. The #1 seed in the 200 back might be the #15 seed in the 100 back – as the 15th row of swimmers is added to each event, she’ll be added to the 100 back list, but won’t take up another one of the 281 invite spots, as she already has her official invite.
5. The final row of swimmers added won’t come out exactly even. In the final row, the swimmers with entry times closest to the NCAA “A” cut will get added first, and when the 235th man or 281st woman is added, the process stops. So the 100 fly could have 38 women and the 200 fly 39 women – that would mean the 39th 200 flyer was closer to the NCAA “A” than the 39th 100 flyer and therefore won the ‘tie-breaker’ for the final spot.