With the NCAA season around the corner, many people are wondering how their favorite team will do this season, and how teams did in their recruiting. This is the first year that we will not see 5th-year athletes at the NCAA Championships, though there are a few redshirt athletes hanging around, which means the incoming freshmen have more opportunity to make an impact than in years past.
As always, we are ranking the 2025 Division I women’s recruiting classes for this season. We have already posted the honorable mentions, so we are getting started with the ranked teams, where we will be starting at #16 and working our way down to #1. This article will cover #16 to #13.
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A few important notes on our rankings:
- The rankings listed are based on our Class of 2025 Re-Rank. “HM” refers to our honorable mentions and “BOTR” refers to our Best of the Rest section for top-tier recruits.
- Like most of our rankings, these placements are subjective. We base our team ranks on a number of factors: prospects’ incoming times are by far the main factor, but we also consider potential upside in the class, class size, relay impact, and team needs. Greater weight is placed on known success in short course yards, so foreign swimmers are slightly devalued based on the difficulty in converting long course times to short course production.
- Transfers are included, though they are weighed less than recruits who arrive with four seasons of eligibility.
- For the full list of all verbally committed athletes, click here. A big thank you to SwimSwam’s own Anne Lepesant for compiling that index – without it, rankings like these would be far less comprehensive.
- Some teams had not released a finalized 2025-26 team roster at the time these articles were published, meaning it’s possible we missed some names. Let us know in the comments below.
Honorable Mentions
- UCLA, Wisconsin, South Carolina
#16 Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame had a large senior contingent graduate at the end of last year, with seven members of their conference team leaving. They made up some of that ground with their nine-member recruiting class, which has three of our BOTR recruits. They are also an entirely American class, meaning we have a good idea of how the swimmers will do this year.
Emily Hamill has strong times in the backstroke events, which is crucial for the Notre Dame team that graduated their top four individual backstrokers, leaving the space completely empty. Hamill’s times of 53.19 and 1:53.89 would have been 2nd and 1st on last year’s team, respectively, but she has not been that fast in over a year. Last season, her best 100 was 54.08 and her best 200 was 1:56.45. While this is still faster than anyone who is returning from last season, it doesn’t have quite the same impact that the 53/1:53 would have.
Becky Rentz is in a similar situation, coming in with the 2nd fastest 100 fly time from the team last year, at 53.07, which comes from November of 2023. Her 50 and 100 freestyles will be more impactful for the distance-oriented team with the 48.69 she swam in the 100 in November, bringing her in with the fastest time last season. In the 50, she swam 22.63, which would have been 4th last year with every swimmer ahead of her graduating. She will likely be a huge relay swimmer, even if her fly is not at top speed.
Finally, they got IMer Ava Pape, whose times of 2:00.57 and 4:13.47 are also from 2023, but will help add depth behind sophomore Carli Cronk, who was one of their three NCAA qualifiers last season. Pape will be joined in the IM group by Gracyn Lanning and Tess Heavner. Heavner’s best time in the 200 IM is 2:01.07 which comes from November and would have been 2nd on the team behind Cronk last year.
#15 Duke Blue Devils
The Blue Devils have an entire class of athletes with SCY times coming in this season, making predicting their performance easier than most schools. With their top ACC and NCAA scorer breaststroker Kaelyn Gridley returning for another year, they could improve their 11th-place finish from last year.
They have three BOTR recruits coming in, two of whom are sprint freestylers who will help make relay impacts. Heather White is one of them, and she is on a sharp upward improvement. She dropped almost two seconds in her 100 free and about a second in her 50 to swim times of 22.69 and 48.90. These times put her on the edge of Duke’s relay contention, but her 200 free time of 1:47.60 has strong relay potential.
Sidney Arcella is the other sprint freestyler, and her times of 22.91 in the 50 and 49.08 in the 100 sit just behind White. Her 200 freestyle time of 1:46.46 would have been the fastest on the team last year and would have qualified 24th at ACCs. This fills a crucial missing spot for the Blue Devils who did not have any finalists in the event last year
Tierney Lenahan is their final BOTR recruit, and she will join Annika McEnroe, a transfer from Cal with two years of eligibility remaining, in adding depth to the backstroke events. Ali Pfaff holds both Duke school records and will be a junior this season. McEnroe was an NCAA qualifier her first two years at Cal, but she has not swum a meet since Cal’s midseason meet in 2023, which leaves a question mark about where she will be this year.
Lenahan’s backstroke times of 52.62 and 1:55.51 will help the team, but her 100 freestyle comes in at 48.55, which would have been 2nd on the team last year, and can help their relay performances significantly.
#14 Ohio State Buckeyes
- SwimSwam Ranked Recruits: BOTR KK Leblanc (sprint free/back), BOTR Adair Shaw (distance free)
- The “Rest”: Ines Mahmoudi (France), Nika Sharafutdinova (Ukraine), Shadée Montassier (France), Sienna Rodgers (Canada), Taya Hutchison (Canada), Emmy Therrien (AZ – Fly/IM), Charlotte LePage (NC – free), Carrie Furbee (OH – fly/free), Abigail Perry (CO – free), Hannah Newbrook (Great Britain – Diving), Brooklyn Petit (diving)
Ohio State had some excellent recruits last year on the women’s side, including Mila Nikanorov, who ended up winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year after scoring 25 points at the 2025 NCAA Championships. This year, they have a huge class of 16 athletes coming in, of which six are international and two are divers.
A large international contingent makes it hard to predict how they will do, as a lot of their performance will be based on making the transition from LCM to SCY. Some athletes handle it incredibly well, while others struggle, and there is no clear way to determine who will be in what category.
The Buckeyes did pick up two BOTR recruits on the American side with freestylers KK Leblanc and Adair Shaw. Leblanc, a sprint freestyler, is bringing in times of 22.3/ 48.9/1:46.3 in the freestyle events and 53.3 in both the 100 back and the 100 fly. She will be an asset to the Ohio State sprint group that graduated two of its top sprinters. Leblanc will be joined by fellow sprint and butterfly recruit Carrie Furbee, whose best 50 freestyle time comes in at 23.0 and 100 fly is also 53.3.
They also snagged BOTR swimmer Adair Shaw, who will add depth to the distance program. Shaw has been continuously getting faster, and all of her freestyle events from the 200 free to the 1650 have gotten faster this year. If she continues improving, she will be a really strong asset for the Ohio State program.
On the international side, Sienna Rodgers, from Canada, will be joining the Buckeyes as a backstroke and butterflyer. Her best 100 backstroke time in SCM converts to 53.60, which will add depth to the roster. Ohio State has also had a strong history with Canadians named Sienna, as last year they brought in Sienna Angove who scored 76 points at the Big Ten Championships.
There are two new divers being added to a very strong diving program as well, with Hannah Newbrook and Brooklyn Petit joining a team that racked up 214 points at the 2025 Big Ten Championships.
#13 Louisville Cardinals
Louisville has nine swimmers coming in for the 2025-26 school year. Of those nine swimmers, four are international and have never swum SCY before. That leaves five American recruits, including the fastest sprinter in the class of 2025.
Julie Mishler was our #11 recruit this year, and she finished the season with the top time and National High School record in the 50 freestyle of 21.56. This swim is already almost half a second under the NCAA cutline in the event, and would have qualified for the ‘A’ final in the event ahead of graduated Cardinal Gabi Albiero. She also broke Gretchen Walsh’s National High School record, making her a near lock for the women’s 200 freestyle relay.
Mishler has been following a very steady improvement curve over the last few years, and, on top of this exceptional swim in the 50, she swam a blistering 47.58 100 freestyle in March, which is also under the NCAA cutline in the event. Again, this swim comes in behind only Julia Dennis, who is entering her final year with the program and will make a significant impact on the 400 freestyle relay for the team. Her 100 and 200 backstroke events are also very strong, with her 200 backstroke also coming in under the NCAA cutline and her 100 backstroke sitting just over it. Her 50 and 100 backstroke times would have been the fastest of returning swimmers from last year, which puts her in contention to swim the 200 and 400 medley relays, meaning she could swim four relays as a freshman.
While Mishler is an exceptional recruit for Louisville, it is difficult to place them higher than 13th because she is their only ranked recruit. Xeniya Ignatova from Kazakhstan is a backstroker who could also be a strong addition to the Louisville roster. Her SCM and LCM 100 backstroke times both convert to 53.4, which will add depth to the team if she can replicate those swims at the yard level.
