By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
The first year of a new system will always have its bumps. In the zero-sum game of NCAA qualification, where the creation of auto-qualifying spots for conference champions this year means the loss of spots elsewhere. That affects the cutlines, meaning that there are some swimmers who fall outside this year when they would not have done so under the previous qualification system.
On the women’s side, there are a total of 16 women who fall into that group – which does also mean that there are 16 women entered who would not have had the opportunity previously. Thanks to an exhaustive processing of the data by Andrew Mering, we can outline those swimmers, which events they ranked in, and where they are from.
The fact that there are 16 women who would have made the meet under the old system means that there are 16 conference champions this year who qualified thanks to the new system. In a pool of 281 swimmers, that translates to 5.7% of the entrants.
Those 16 conference champions come from 13 different schools, of which six are only at the meet thanks to the new auto-qualification system.
UNLV (2) Hawai’i (1) Northern Colorado (1) UNC-Wilmington (1) Miami (Ohio) (1) Maryland (1) Name School Event Time Row Cameron Snowden UNC-Wilmington 100 fly 52.06 41 Casadie Dibetta Ohio 200 breast 2:09.33 42 Eva Boehlke UC San Diego 200 IM 1:57.43 42 Lauren Walsh Navy 100 breast 59.78 45 Jinjutha Pholjamjumrus Nevada-Reno 400 IM 4:10.97 47 Maria Erokhina Northern Colorado 100 breast 59.96 49 Sabrina Johnston Princeton 50 free 22.07 52 Chrisna Bezuidenhout Miami (Ohio) 200 back 1:54.28 52 Rachel Wiggington UNLV 200 fly 1:57.08 53 Asia Kozan UC San Diego 200 free 1:45.20 54 Ava Olsen UNLV 500 free 4:43.08 57 Alexia Duncan Houston 100 back 52.31 59 Catriona Gilmore Navy 200 breast 2:10.28 61 Reese Cole Rice 400 IM 4:12.61 66 Ashley Gutshall Maryland 50 free 22.25 71 Holly Nelson Hawai’i 50 free 22.28 76Only one of these swimmers has qualified individually for NCAAs before. Sabrina Johnston swam the 50 free and 100 free at 2024 NCAAs, and was a relay-only swimmer for Princeton at the meet last year.
With only 16 swimmers moving either in or out due to the new system there are not any clear scorers left out of the meet, and only one finalist from 2025 NCAAs in Florida’s Addison Reese.
*Priority is for this list, not for the list of alternates, which is due to the differences between the two systems
Name School Event Time Row Overall Priority* Sarah Bennetts UCLA 100 breast 59.55 35 1 Tyler Driscoll NC State 50 free 21.93 37 2 Shea Furse Georgia 200 free 1:44.31 37 3 Bridget McGann Wisconsin 200 breast 2:09.00 38 4 Julia Wozniak Arizona 50 free 21.93 38 5 Fernanda de Goeij Kentucky 400 IM 4:09.43 38 6 Addison Reese Florida 200 fly 1:56.28 38 7 Roni Black San Diego 200 breast 2:09.08 39 8 Jessica Eden OSU 400 IM 4:09.45 39 9 Maddy Parker SMU 100 free 47.94 39 10 Sabrina Lyn LSU 100 breast 59.61 39 11 Sage Miller 200 fly 1:56.30 39 12 Miriam Sheehan ASU 100 back 51.83 40 13 Payton Flowers Iowa 50 free 21.94 40 14 Ava Muzzy NC State 400 IM 4:09.45 40 15 Xeniya Ignatova Louisville 200 back 1:53.35 40 16The first alternate for the meet this year is UCLA’s Sarah Bennetts, who has a season-best of 59.55 in the 100 breast, over half a second away from what it took to score in 2025. The junior only dipped below 1:00 for the first time this season, and sliced 0.31 seconds off her best at Big Tens to come within 0.02 seconds of San Diego State’s Moa Bergdahl, the final non-conference-champ (NCC) qualifier in the event.
*Bennetts has been called up after Ashley McMillan scratched out of the meet
Arizona’s Julia Wozniak and NC State’s Tyler Driscoll were even closer based purely on time. Their season-best times, tied at 21.93, were a single hundredth of a second off Carrie Furbee’s 21.92 which saw the freshman make the meet as the penultimate overall swimmer in, only ahead of Inez Miller in the 200 free.
There is just one swimmer on this list who scored at NCAAs last year, Florida’s Addison Reese. She placed 13th in the 200 fly last year in 1:54.30 after going 1:54.14 in prelims, but has only been 1:56.28 this season and was 12th at SECs in 1:56.64.
There are some other swimmers who have competed previously at NCAAs, either individually or as a relay-only swimmer. Miriam Sheehan swam the 50 free and 100 back at 2024 NCAAs back when she was at NC State, and was a relay-only swimmer for ASU at 2025 NCAAs.
Tyler Driscoll, her former teammate at NC State, swam the 50 free and 100 free at 2025 NCAAs, and Sarah Bennetts, the first alternate this year, swam on UCLA’s 200 free and 400 free relays at 2025 NCAAs. Georgia’s Shea Furse had qualified in the 200 free in both 2024 and 2025, placing 24th and 22nd respectively at NCAAs, but was slower in-season this year than in either of the previous two.
There are some big cutline changes under the new system in the 400 IM, where it moves from 4:08.80 to 4:09.45 and pushes out three swimmers from the meet – Fernanda de Goeij, Ava Muzzy, and Jessica Eden. The 50 free cutline only gets 0.02 seconds quicker, from 21.94 to 21.92, but that range also encompasses three swimmers – Tyler Driscoll, Julia Wozniak, and Payton Flowers.
There were a total of 107 conference-winning swims in times under the auto-qualification marks, coming from 74 swimmers. That made up 26.3% of the total qualifiers for the meet, and 81 of those conference-winning times – 75.7% – would have qualified under the old system regardless.
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