2023 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships Daily Updates

Wednesday, March 15

Knoxville

University of Tennessee

NCAA Women's Championships

2023 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships Daily Updates

March 15, 2023 | Swimming & Diving, Women's Swimming & Diving

Final Results Photo Gallery Photo Gallery 2

Lady Vols Finish Eighth Overall in Team Standings After Four Podium Finishes on Final Night of NCAAs

An incredible week or performances concluded with the Tennessee Lady Vols placing eighth overall in the team standings thanks to four podium finishes on the final night of the 2023 NCAA Championships at Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.

"The meet actually from a pure competitive standpoint started really well, and I've felt like I had to remind the team that we can only control how well we swim and dive," Director of Swimming & Diving Matt Kredich said. "We can't really control everybody else, so we had a ninth-place finishes and a couple of near misses in the B finals, but some really competitive races. We were winning heats. I don't think we finished in the bottom half of any heat in any race almost all weekend in prelims. The coaching staff pointed out how competitive this team was, and said that we're doing great stuff, we're on the right track. If there was any doubt, I think that was removed on Friday morning with another really competitive session where we ended up having more people qualify and certainly in A finals. When a team sees their teammates competing for national championships and competing so well, I mean, Brooklyn Douthwright and Mona McSharry had such inspiring performances. Josephine Fuller putting herself in an A final is so inspiring, especially after getting 11th in the 200 IM. I think that just got everybody really focused. We took that into today. I think we had another great morning session. People competed in their heats where they finished near the top of their heats again. What was really clear to me, starting at the very beginning of the meet, but it just kept revealing itself was this is a team of really fierce competitors, and they're willing to put themselves in it.

"We've had so many instances of people that have either never been to meets or came to the meet once or twice and weren't able to score it; they were on the podium. They were in the B finals. They were scoring points. I think that's a result of the process of finding what our identity was this year, and we had many levels of shakeup from losing a really good senior class to having a number of people, who we expected to have, not be back due to illness or some other reason. A lot of those people and personalities had created roles on the team that needed somebody to step into, or we needed to learn how to deal with those roles changing or not being filled, and that was confusing for some people. If I look around at this group of women at NCAAs, it is actually a group of introverts. It's a pretty quiet group. They happen to be incredibly fierce, and they've got each other's backs through thick and thin. I mean they are as connected as they could possibly be, but it took each of them a while to step into the role of a competitive leader and a cultural leader. And in some cases, we had to suffer the consequences of nobody stepping in and make them uncomfortable. Now, we have this really tough battle-tested group that is emerging that will be juniors and seniors next year, and with a couple of the people that have been injured this year coming back and a really powerful freshman class coming in, I think that the leadership structure for next year is as well-formed as it could be right now. To me, that's really exciting because, the coaches and staff will follow this group of returners in a battle against anybody, anytime."

Overall for the week, the Big Orange saw 10 different individuals win a combined 28 All-America honors. The group put together nine podium finishes, including a pair of silver medal performances. It was the sixth year in a row in which the Lady Vols finished inside the top-10 nationally.

Tennessee wasted no time getting on the podium to start the night, as Kristen Stege (15:50.24) and Alyssa Breslin (15:50.80) finished in less than 0.6 seconds of each other to place fourth and sixth nationally in a tight race. This marked the third year in a row in which Stege placed on the podium at NCAAs, and for Breslin, her time was the second-best in program history and garnered her All-America recognition for the first time in her career.

After matching her program record in the event during the morning session, Josephine Fuller placed fourth in the 200 back, touching the wall in 1:50.22 to earn her fifth All-America honor of the week. She also placed seventh in the 100 back and 11th in the 200 IM to cap off her impressive sophomore season.

In the 200 breast, Mona McSharry clocked a program-record 2:04.59 effort to take fourth in the event. For the week, she garnered six All-America honors, including three first team recognitions, and finished inside the top four in both breaststroke events.

Rounding out the individual performances, Sara Stotler threw down the third-fastest time in Tennessee history in the 200 fly at 1:53.94 to finish 10th overall. By qualifying for the nightcap, it marked the first consolation final of her career.

Finishing the meet with the 400 free relay, the Lady Vol lineup of McSharry, Brooklyn Douthwright, Stotler and Julia Mrozinski posted a 3:12.94 effort to come in 10th nationally. The effort marked the eighth-fastest time in program history and was the fourth relay to earn All-America recognition on the week.

Final Standings
1. Virginia – 541.5
2. Texas – 414.5
3. Stanford – 333
4. Louisville – 288
5. NC State – 263
6. Ohio State – 223
7. Indiana – 219
8. Tennessee – 214
9. Florida – 179
10. North Carolina – 152

Podium Finishes (9)
200 Free – 2nd – Brooklyn Douthwright (1:42.41)
100 Breast – 2nd – Mona McSharry (57.16)
1650 Free – 4th – Kristen Stege (1:50.24)
200 Back – 4th – Josephine Fuller (1:50.22)
200 Breast – 4th – Mona McSharry (2:04.59)
800 Free Relay – 5th – Brooklyn Douthwright, Sara Stotler, Elle Caldow, Julia Mrozinski (6:57.49)
400 Medley Relay – 5th – Josephine Fuller, Mona McSharry, Sara Stotler, Brooklyn Douthwright (3:27.92)
1650 Free – 6th – Alyssa Breslin (1:50.80)
100 Back – 7th – Josephine Fuller (51.18)

All-America Tracker (28)
Alyssa Breslin (1650 Free)
Elle Caldow (800 FR)
Brooklyn Douthwright (200 Free, 800 FR, 400 MR, 400 FR*)
Josephine Fuller (100 Back, 200 Back, 400 MR, 200 IM*, 200 MR*)
Kate McCarville (500 Free*)
Mona McSharry (100 Breast, 200 Breast, 400 MR, 50 Free*, 400 FR*, 200 MR*)
Julia Mrozinski (800 FR, 500 Free*, 400 FR*)
Jasmine Rumley (200 MR*)
Kristen Stege (1650 Free)
Sara Stotler (800 FR, 400 MR, 200 Fly*, 400 FR*, 200 MR*)

*Denotes Honorable Mention

Prelim Notables

Two Lady Vols earned spots in the A finals on Day 4 of NCAAs, and one swimmer advanced to the B final.
During the 200 back, Josephine Fuller matched her program record with a 1:50.12 effort to punch her ticket to the A final with the No. 3 seed. Elle Caldow capped off a solid week by clocking a personal-best 1:53.84 to finish 30th. Her mark ranked seventh in Lady Vol history.
In the 100 free, Brooklyn Douthwright recorded a 48.11 time to place 20th overall, while Julia Mrozinski took 55th.
Mona McSharry notched the fourth-best time in the 200 breast prelims, touching the wall in 2:06.39 to advance to the A final.
Rounding out the morning session, Sara Stotler finished 13th in prelims for the 200 fly to advance to the B final. It marked the first time in her career in which she advanced to the finals at NCAAs.

Quotes
Associate Head Coach Ashley Jahn
"This was a great day of competition for us as a team. Starting off in the morning session, Josephine Fuller gets her second A final and does a phenomenal job and finishes fourth tonight. I'm really proud of her effort and competitiveness. Just the entire season and body of work that she's put together is just awesome. Moving into the 100 freestyles, those were really solid efforts this morning. We missed a little bit in the morning and didn't get anybody back in the individual event. But we really felt like, 'okay we're going to be stronger in the relay' and obviously Julia Mrozinski and Brooklyn Douthwright were big pieces on that relay tonight. And then, Mona McSharry is just an incredible competitor. It's so great to watch her make the adjustments that she did from her morning swim and her great competitive efforts in the 200 breaststroke. Sara Stotler, this morning, qualified for her first individual consolation final at NCAAs. It was her first individual scoring events in the 200 fly, and she just wasn't super happy with her swim this morning and made a lot of great adjustment and she swam really, really well tonight. I'm really proud of her effort. The relays tonight were awesome. That was really competitive relay. A lot of them swam faster than they did at SECs. It was just a great competitive effort this week.

"I'm so proud of the milers. Claire Nguyen got us started in the second heat. She did a great job with that. I'm really proud of her in her last collegiate swim of her career. It's really great that she could put together the season that she did and make NCAAs and be a great contributor to this team in the postseason. Kate McCarville, I'm so proud of the work that she's done this season. She didn't have the mile that she wanted tonight, but I have full confidence that she's going to keep getting better and better and putting together the performances at this meet that she really wants to have. Kristen Stege and Aly Breslin started off the session tonight in the final heat of the mile. What a great competitive battle. It was an awesome heat, going back and forth with a lot of different things. And for Aly to get a sixth-place finish just puts an exclamation point on the awesome season that she's had this year. Kristen had her final mile of her collegiate career. I'm really proud of her effort and finishing fourth. It was just a great, great performance.

"I'm really proud of this group of 15 women. They really decided this week who they were going to be as competitors. Certainly, they came out of the larger team. I would say that the team grew a lot this season in terms of finding their competitive identity, but ultimately, it was this group of 12 swimmers and three divers that took it to another level. I'm excited for the rest of their teammates to watch and to get as excited as this group of competitive women were to compete this week and take that into next year."

Douthwright, McSharry Post National Runner-Up Performances to Headline Night 3 of NCAAs

An incredible slate of Thursday night races, which were headlined by national runner-up performances from Brooklyn Douthwright and Mona McSharry, lifted the Lady Vols five spots in the team standings to eighth overall going into the final day of competition at the NCAA Championships.

Kicking off the night, Douthwright capped off her incredible run in the 200 free this season by finishing second overall, touching the wall in a personal-best time of 1:42.41. The race came down to the wire, as she came up just 0.05 seconds behind first in the blink-of-an-eye finish. Her time also marked the second-best effort in Lady Vol history.

Just one event later, McSharry bested her SEC and Tennessee record in the 100 breast by clocking a 57.16 to also finish second nationally. With her national runner-up performance, the Sligo, Ireland, native has now placed inside the top four in the 100 breast all three years on Rocky Top after taking fourth as a freshman and sophomore.

After recording the No. 3 time in program history during prelims at 51.00, Josephine Fuller rounded out the individual events on the night by taking seventh overall in the 100 back (51.18). By advancing to the A final, the Richmond, Virginia, native garnered All-America First Team honors as an individual for the first time in her career. Last night, she earned All-America honorable mention recognition in the 200 IM.

Finishing the night with a bang, Fuller, McSharry, Sara Stotler and Douthwright threw down the second-best time in Lady Vol history in the 400 medley relay, clocking a 3:27.92 to finish fifth overall. During prelims in the 100 fly, Stotler recorded a personal-best effort of 51.87, which ranked eighth in UT history.

Podium Finishes (5)
200 Free – 2nd – Brooklyn Douthwright (1:42.41)
100 Breast – 2nd – Mona McSharry (57.16)
800 Free Relay – 5th – Brooklyn Douthwright, Sara Stotler, Elle Caldow, Julia Mrozinski (6:57.49)
400 Medley Relay – 5th – Josephine Fuller, Mona McSharry, Sara Stotler, Brooklyn Douthwright (3:27.92)
100 Back – 7th – Josephine Fuller (51.18)

All-America Tracker (19)
Elle Caldow (800 FR)
Brooklyn Douthwright (200 Free, 800 FR, 400 MR)
Josephine Fuller (100 Back, 400 MR, 200 IM*, 200 MR*)
Kate McCarville (500 Free*)
Mona McSharry (100 Breast, 400 MR, 50 Free*, 200 MR*)
Julia Mrozinski (800 FR, 500 Free*)
Jasmine Rumley (200 MR*)
Sara Stotler (800 FR, 400 MR, 200 MR*)

Prelim Notables

Three Lady Vols earned spots in the A finals on Day 3 of NCAAs. Brooklyn Douthwright (200 free) and Mona McSharry (100 breast) posted the No. 3 seed in their respective events, while Josephine Fuller recorded the seventh-best prelim time in the 100 back.
Sara Stotler clocked the No. 8 time in Lady Vol history in the 100 fly, touching the wall in 51.87 to finish 21st overall.
In the 200 free, Elle Caldow placed 34th with a time of 1:46.14, followed closely by Julia Mrozinski in 36th behind a 1:46.24 mark. Kate McCarville took 55th with a 1:47.67 time.
Elle Caldow completed the second swim of her double by taking 28th in the 100 back.
In diving, Grace Cable finished 33rd overall on the 3-meter with a 266.20 score.

Quotes
Associate Head Coach Ashley Jahn
"The women competed really, really well today, and obviously to get to the swims at night, you've got to have the performances in the morning and our team did a great job of competing this morning. Even for the people that didn't make it back into A final tonight, we were finishing in the top half of heats again, and we were finishing our races really well so it was a great start to the day. Brooklyn Douthwright, that was just a wonderful 200 free that she swam tonight. Very professional in her execution, and it was really well-swam, so it wound up being runner-up. Mona McSharry's 100 breaststroke was awesome. That was just a gutsy and competitive swim. She's so tough and such a great competitor as well as a great leader and great example of sticking to a process and enjoying that process. She did a great job tonight. Really proud of her and her runner-up finish. Josephine Fuller in her first final executed it really well. She went into the final in seventh, so she held seeds tonight and swam a really solid race, and she's got a lot to be proud of. There's a lot more in that event for her. That relay was so fun just in their preparation. Sara Stotler had a best time in the 100 fly this morning, so we knew that the fly leg was going to be really solid. She was great on that leg tonight, and you know three really solid performances from the women that had already competed earlier in the session.

"We have a great day tomorrow. I mean, if you look back at our conference meet, the last day was arguably one of our best days in terms of number of swims. We have a lot of women that are ready to compete tomorrow, and I think it's going to be our best morning session yet which is going to lead to those performances that we want to have at night. It's a really competitive meet. All the other teams are well prepared too, so it's going to be a great Tennessee finish tomorrow night."

Four Lady Vols Earn All-America Honors on Night 2 of NCAAs

On the second day of the NCAA Championships, four Lady Vols brought home All-America recognition by finishing inside the top 16 nationally in their respective events at Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.

Opening the night, Julia Mrozinski clocked a season-best effort in the 500 free to win the B final with a time of 4:37.34 and place ninth overall. It was the second year in a row in which she won the consolation final. Kate McCarville earned her first All-America honor, as she touched the wall in 4:40.54 to come in 12th.

In the 200 IM B final, Josephine Fuller placed 11th overall behind a 1:54.94 mark. Like McCarville, it was the first NCAA finals appearance as an individual in her career. No stranger to an NCAA final, Mona McSharry rounded out the night by finishing 16th in the 50 free B final with a 22.02 effort. It was her fourth individual All-America honor as a Lady Vol.

All-America Tracker (12)
Elle Caldow (800 FR)
Brooklyn Douthwright (800 FR)
Josephine Fuller (200 IM*, 200 MR*)
Kate McCarville (500 Free*)
Mona McSharry (50 Free*, 200 MR*)
Julia Mrozinski (500 Free*, 800 FR)
Jasmine Rumley (200 MR*)
Sara Stotler (800 FR, 200 MR*)

Podium Finishes
800 Free Relay – Brooklyn Douthwright, Sara Stotler, Elle Caldow, Julia Mrozinski (6:57.49)

Prelim Notables

Four Lady Vols punched their tickets to the Thursday night finals, including three of the four being sophomores.
Alyssa Breslin posted the seventh-fastest time in program history in the 500 free, clocking a 4:41.14 effort.
Kristen Stege finished 18th overall in the 500 free, followed by Alyssa Breslin in 19th and Claire Nguyen in 33rd.
Brooklyn Douthwright clocked a personal best in the 200 IM at 1:57.42 to win her heat.
Sara Stotler placed 21st in the 200 IM, while Douthwright took 33rd.

Quotes
Associate Head Coach Ashley Jahn
"We competed really well today. Starting with this morning, we won heats, were in the top four of circle seeded heats and qualified four athletes back to finals. Julia and Kate both raced really well tonight. I'm so proud of their effort and their performances. Julia winning her heat and Kate scoring for the first time at NCAAs is a great competitive step for both of them.

"Josephine scored for the first time in the 200 IM and has improved so much in that event this year. I'm really proud of her effort and how she is helping to lead this team. Mona also scored for the first time in the 50 free. Mona is one of the best Lady Vols in history, and she continues to improve her processes and be an incredible teammate and leader. I'm really proud of this group of women."

Lady Vol Relays Earn All-America Status to Open NCAA Championships

The seventh-ranked Lady Vols kicked off the 2023 NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships on Wednesday night with a pair of relays that earned All-America status at Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.

Notching the fourth-fastest time in program history, the Tennessee 800 free relay lineup of Brooklyn Douthwright, Sara Stotler, Elle Caldow and Julia Mrozinski clocked a 6:57.49 mark to finish fifth overall. It was the highest finish for the squad in the event since 2018, when the Lady Vols placed fourth nationally.

UT began the session by placing 11th overall in the 200 medley relay with a 1:35.62 effort from the team of Josephine Fuller, Mona McSharry, Stotler and Jasmine Rumley. McSharry threw down a 26.01 split on the 50 breast leg, which was the third-fastest in the field.

Tomorrow morning, the Big Orange will have swimmers compete in the 500 free, 200 IM and 50 free prelims, beginning at 10 a.m.

All-America Tracker (8)
Elle Caldow (800 FR)
Brooklyn Douthwright (800 FR)
Josephine Fuller (200 MR*)
Mona McSharry (200 MR*)
Julia Mrozinski (800 FR)
Jasmine Rumley (200 MR*)
Sara Stotler (800 FR, 200 MR*)

Podium Finishes
800 Free Relay – Brooklyn Douthwright, Sara Stotler, Elle Caldow, Julia Mrozinski (6:57.49)

Quotes
Associate Head Coach Ashley Jahn
"I thought the team did a great job competing tonight. Certainly, the preparation was phenomenal. They've been really fun and really lively all week, and we were excited to send them into the competition. They did a great job tonight."

"The 800 free relay was a really competitive group of Lady Vols, and they did a great job of competing within their portion of the relay. They also did a great job of staying connected and working with the coaches to voice where they felt like they were going to be the best and most competitive. I thought they executed that really, really well. Brooklyn Douthwright in our leadoff, she's just been phenomenally in the 200 free all year. Just a really good effort and an incredibly competitive leadoff for that relay in the third heat of NCAAs. She did a great job with that. Then Sara Stotler took over for her, and she did a great job. That was a phenomenal performance, and it was very consistent. She did essentially exactly what her team needed her to do in that leg of the relay. For Elle Caldow, that was her first relay appearance at an NCAAs, and she did an amazing job. To finish fifth in that relay at this meet is an incredible performance. Julia Mrozinski on the anchor, she's such a professional and has just come through for her team time and time again. She finished with a great performance."

"That medley relay was a great medley relay. They were basically all right on the splits and, in some cases, a little bit faster than what they did at SECs. It was just a really good relay. Josephine Fuller and Mona McSharry have just been incredibly consistent all year. Whenever we've needed them to perform in that relay, they've always risen to the occasion and that was awesome. That was Sara Stotler's first opportunity to swim on that relay in any meet, and she did a great job with that. She swam a really good 50 fly. It's so fun to see Jasmine Rumley back competing the way that we know she can compete. That was just a really well-executed relay."