Matt Riley/Virginia Athletics
Virginia Wins Four More Titles on Day Four at NCAA Swim & Dive Championships
The Cavaliers are closing in on the three-peat. Virginia claimed NCAA titles in four more events on Friday night in Knoxville and now leads the 2023 NCAA Women's Swimming & Diving Championships by more than 100 points entering the final day of competition on Saturday.
Virginia started off the third night of the meet with a bang, as Alex Walsh and Ella Nelson essentially left the rest of the field in the dust, sweeping the top two spots in dominant fashion. Walsh defended her NCAA title in the event, taking first in a program record time of 3:57.24 and Nelson was behind her in second in 3:59.54. Walsh and Nelson were the only two swimmers in the race to finish in under four minutes, while former Cavalier and current Florida Gator Emma Weyant was in third, finishing more than four seconds after Walsh.
Next up was perhaps the most anticipated event of the meet, the 100-yard butterfly with a loaded field featuring Virginia's Kate Douglass, LSU's Maggie MacNeil, and Stanford's Torri Huske. In the end, Douglass, MacNeil, and Huske each swam the event in under 49 seconds and Douglass and MacNeil went head-to-head, both finishing under the previous NCAA record. Kate Douglass won her second individual title of the meet and set an American, NCAA, and US Open record with a time of 48.46, edging MacNeil (48.51) by five hundredths of a second. Huske was third, finishing in 48.96.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Virginia freshman Aimee Canny trailed the leaders by an entire body length, but rallied in the second half of the race to close the gap and nearly completed the comeback, missing out on first place by just 14 hundredths of a second. Stanford's Taylor Ruck repeated as the NCAA champion in the event and Tennessee's Brooklyn Douthwright was second, just barely edging Canny, who finished in 1:42.90. UVA's Maxine Parker took fifth place in 1:43.48.
Lydia Jacoby of Texas won the 100-yard breaststroke and Virginia freshman Emma Weber took eighth place in the finals with a time of 58.95.
UVA sophomore Gretchen Walsh captured her first individual title of the week by winning the 100-yard backstroke, breaking an NCAA and American record in the process with a time of 48.26. Walsh defeated NC State's Katharine Berkoff, who came in as the two-time defending champion in the event, but fell to Walsh, finishing in 49.13.
To close out the night, Virginia made it 4 for 4 in relay events this week by winning the 400-yard medley relay. UVA's team of Gretchen Walsh (backstroke), Alex Walsh (breaststroke), Kate Douglass (butterfly), and Aimee Canny (freestyle) couldn't quite break their own NCAA record, as each of those swimmers had raced in events earlier in the night, but they did set a pool record with a time of 3:22.39 and won by more than two seconds. UVA is now one win away from completing the sweep of the five relays, becoming the first team to accomplish that feat since Stanford in 2018.
Virginia entered the penultimate day of competition at the NCAA Championships with a 46.5-point lead in the team standings. After Friday's results, UVA now leads by 102 points over second-place Texas.
NCAA Women's Swim & Dive Championships Team Standings (through day 3)
- Virginia - 374.5
- Texas - 272.5
- Stanford - 239
- Louisville - 191.5
- NC State - 190
- Ohio State - 170
- Florida - 146
- Tennessee - 135
- North Carolina - 125
- Indiana - 121
Virginia will look to finish the job and complete the three-peat on Saturday night with the 1650-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly, platform diving, and 400-yard freestyle relay. Prelims are at 10am and the finals begin at 6pm with all of the action available for streaming on ESPN+.
To stay up to date on all Virginia Cavaliers sports news, follow CavaliersNow on social media:
Facebook: @CavaliersNow
Twitter: @CavaliersNowFN