Indiana Coach Ray Looze Credits Team Culture With Hoosiers Performance This Week ...Middle East

By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam

2025 Ohio State Fall Invitational

The Indiana Hoosiers are showing off at the Ohio State Fall Invite, putting up best times, new school records and nation leading times across the board.

The Hoosiers lost many of their top swimmers after last year with athletes like Anna Peplowski and Jassen Yep graduating on the swimming side as well as several of their top divers. They brought in a strong freshman class, though nobody knew just how strong they would be.

Head Coach Ray Looze told SwimSwam that the coaches at Indiana were “super pleased with both freshman classes” mentioning that they have blended in seamlessly with the rest of the program. Looze said some of the older swimmers have stepped into leadership roles on the team like Mya DeWitt, Lily Hann, Owen McDonald, Max Cahill, and Drew Reiter, and that the “team culture” didn’t miss a beat. Looze credits this culture with the performances from the team this week.

The Hoosiers started making headlines when Miranda Grana opened the meet with a new school record in the women’s 100 fly, breaking 50 seconds for the first time to swim 49.98. The swim made her the 13th woman in history under 50 seconds in the event.

Grana is one of the swimmers who benefits most from the new NCAA event order, allowing her to swim the 100 fly and 100 back on separate days, when she has historically swum them both on Friday. Looze also pointed out that a lighter day 3 will allow her to swim a fresher 200 backstroke on the final day of the meet.

A few of the men on the team are trying out new events at the Ohio State Invite, attempting to find their 3rd event after they were affected by the new order’s “blessings and curses” as Looze referred to it.

Owen McDonald and Miroslav Knedla both ran into conflicts on the final day with Knedla opting to swim the 200 back over the 200 IM and McDonald choosing the 200 back at the Ohio State Invite. McDonald ended up having a very strong 100 fly instead, finishing 2nd in 44.68, a two second drop, while Knedla ended up in the 200 free, finishing 6th overall.

In terms of newcomers, Indiana has a host of freshman and transfers that are making a big impact at the program. Leading the charge of newcomers is freshman Liberty Clark, who has been having a standout college debut at Indiana.

The Chico, California native started her college career with an exceptional performance at the USC Invite, where she won the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle events in all three. She built on that momentum this week, winning the 200 freestyle in 1:41.27, finishing 2nd in the 50 free at 21.54, and qualifying first in the 100 free prelims with her 47.24. Coming into college, she was 22.30 in the 50, 48.48 in the 100 free, and 1:45.76 in the 200 free.

Looze said the coaches were not surprised by this outcome and that they could see her significant drops coming based on the way she trains. “She is a super hard worker, performs really really well in practice in a range of energy systems she has performed great.”

Clark highlights a shift in the Indiana women’s program in recent years, both in recruiting and in training. Just three years ago, the school record in the women’s 50 freestyle was 21.90, and since then, four different women have been under that mark: Ashley Turak, Anna Peplowski, Kristina Paegle, and Clark.

Looze credits the team’s “diverse training program” with this improvement, along with recruiting high level talent in the sprint events. He points to pro swimmer Van Mathias as an example of their different training opportunities.

Mathias took more than two years off competing after graduating in 2023, but came back to the pool as a sprinter in June, and in August he made the U.S. Pan Pacs roster in the 50 breast. “We have Van Mathias doing less than 5,000 a week…I’m not saying that Liberty does that, but we have everything in between that you can imagine.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the Hoosiers have transfers Andrew Shackell and Aaron Shackell, who will both race longer events. They have both been swimming well so far this season, with Aaron swimming his first personal best time in the 500 freestyle in more than two years on night two, touching in 4:11.14 to come in second behind teammate Zalan Sarkany, who has also been having a good season. Aaron swims a hybrid program at Indiana, training with Chris Plumb at Carmel.

Andrew, who swims 100% of the Indiana practices, took the top spot in the 200 fly prelims, swimming 1:41.72 to drop more than two seconds from his previous best of 1:44.29 that he set at the beginning of October. Looze said, “There’s no harder worker. He’s fearless, and he’s a guy that hasn’t gotten a whole lot of spotlight, but he’s a really good swimmer. They have both been huge additions in areas that we needed it.”

Their sister Alex Shackell will be joining the program in the spring semester, and Looze says she has already been at football games with the team supporting Indiana’s #2 football program in the country.

She has also been around for some practices with the Hoosiers with Looze telling SwimSwam that they received a waiver to allow her presence before she was enrolled in classes.

Shackell will come into a program that has been building a lot of momentum in the fall semester, and will have an impact immediately as she arrives on campus. Her sprint freestyle speed will pair nicely with Clark and senior Paegle, and if she develops in the same way, we could be looking at a very exciting team in February and March.

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