By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
The winds of change are shifting in the ranks of Big Ten women’s breaststroking. Traditional powers like Indiana and Minnesota are absent from the conference’s top 10 rankings in the 100 breaststroke this season, Indiana has just one in the top 10 of the 200 breaststroke, and schools like Michigan (Letitia Sim) and Wisconsin (with three of the top five in the 200 breaststroke are rising).
Top 10, Women’s 100 SCY Breaststroke, Big Ten, 2025-2026 Season
Maria Ramos Najji, Ohio State – 58.00 Letitia Sim, Michigan – 58.12 Brooke Corrigan, Wisconsin – 59.80 Sarah Bennetts, UCLA – 59.97 Bella Brito, USC – 1:00.16 Bridget McGann, Wisconsin – 1:00.23 Paige Delma, Ohio State – 1:00.28 Cecilia Howard, Michigan – 1:00.47 (TIE) Ashley McMillan, USC – 1:00.48 Hazal Ozkan, Wisconsin – 1:00.48But maybe the most interesting revelation on the conference rankings is the University of Illinois, which is rewriting their own school record book and nosing its way up the conference rankings.
This screenshot of the school’s record book was posted by Illinois’ 4th year head coach Jeana Kempe on Wednesday. In the last season-and-a-half, two swimmers, Kayla Duran and Chloe Diner, have decimated the Illini’s all-time top 10 in the 100 breaststroke.
But not just decimated in the sense of “beat it up real bad.” They literally removed 90% of it.
There was only a solitary swim remaining in the top 10 performances in school history wasn’t done by either Diner or Duran in the last 12 months. That’s #10, that was done by Gabriele Seriniute in 2019.
Then on Saturday, they cleared the deck when Diner swam 1:01.66 and Duran swam 1:01.83 in the team’s tri meet against Purdue and Wisconsin, giving them the entire top 10 list.
“I think we are limitless in our potential right now,” Kempe said of her team’s potential. “We challenge our team to be “The Best Illinois Team Ever” day in and day out. Every year we are re-writing the history books and accepting the next challenge. It’s really fun to look at this team and almost the majority of them are school record holders or a part of a top ten performance in history. Every girl feels they have a responsibility to continue to elevate the team’s goals and in doing so, it challenges them each day in our program. Our athletic director is one of the best in the country. He is fully supportive in our program and has positioned our entire department to be competitive at the highest-level year in and year out. I think we just hitting a launching point for our program
What’s even more interesting is that both Duran and Diner have pulled this off as just sophomores. They both entered with lifetime bests of 1:01.51, faster than Serniute’s former school record, so this becomes a positive sign both for the program’s ability to recruit and for their ability to develop, given that both swimmers have gotten faster.
“Our staff and department are authentically ourselves, and we share all the things we have to elevate them in the pool, academically, and set them up to accomplish the world,” Kempe said about how the school recruits swimmers better-than-records. “It takes special people/athletes to ‘carry the flag’ into programs where they are the fastest individuals. Chloe and Kayla came in knowing what the staff wanted for Illinois in the future. They were/are a HUGE blueprint for our success. They elevate the women around them and we are a better program for it. We are excited for all the women in our program paving the way for our next few classes.”
For an Illinois team that hasn’t finished better than 10th at Big Tens since the first Bush Administration (when there were fewer teams in the conference), there are positive signs all over the place for this program. Sara Jass last year broke the school record in the 400 IM by 1.4 seconds – and that record stood for 16 years.
And it all kind of makes sense. Kemp was an Illinois state champion in the 100 breaststroke in 2001 and 2002 and the 200 IM in 2001, 2002, and 2003. She was a member of the U.S. Junior National Team, and an Olympic Trials qualifier, and an assistant at Auburn, and an assistant at LSU, and an assistant at a good mid-major program at Northern Arizona.
“First and foremost, it has started with relationship building in recruiting (club coaches, student-athletes, and parents),” Kempe told SwimSwam about the culture shift within the program. “We (the staff) have shared our vision for Illinois from the very first practice we coached 3.5 years ago. Our staff is honest, passionate, and driven to share the story of this program and to create the vision into reality.
“Secondly, our team is our famILLy [sic]. Every girl (and parents!!) in our program play a role in our success. We have worked with a few leadership coaches over the years and each has given us a unique perspective in growing our culture. Last summer we created the ‘Illini Leadership Academy.’ Our team met four times as a group to breakdown 1. How leadership was defined within the team. 2. What qualities were important to lead our team to the next level. 3. What are the core values we possess as individuals and as a team. We were able to create and open and honest space for the team and coaches to develop our next step TOGETHER.
Kemp has the pedigree, both generally and in the events where the Illini are excelling, and while the University of Illinois is not necessarily a huge national brand in swimming, the school is a regional behemoth and has a national brand in other sports like football and basketball. Both Duran and Diner are from the Chicagoland area, where Illinois as a university is a dominant force.
Kemp is building this right. Leaning into her personal strengths, leaning into the strengths of the university, and building something new – from the ground up.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Two Illinois Sophomores Hold the Top 11 Times in School History in the 100 Breaststroke
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