Is the women’s senior class of 2015 one of the best of all-time in the sport of swimming?<\/p>\n
In the fall of 2014 when the seniors were committing (because back then, swimmers waited until they were seniors to commit), the class was definitely stacked. But nobody knew how stacked the class really was.<\/p>\n
There were the established names of Katie Ledecky\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Abbey Weitzeil\u00a0<\/strong>along with\u00a0Kathleen Baker\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Katie McLaughlin<\/strong>, who had come off a summer where they swam for Team USA at the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia when they had just finished their junior year of high school.<\/p>\n But the class also had up-and-comers that the swimming community did not know much about yet. There was\u00a0Ella Eastin<\/strong>,\u00a0Lilly King<\/strong> and Amy Bilquist\u00a0<\/strong>who had started to establish themselves on the junior team but had not made that jump to the senior level quite yet.<\/p>\n There isn’t really a distinguished “best class ever.” The high school graduating class of 2013 with\u00a0Missy Franklin<\/strong>,\u00a0Lia Neal<\/strong>,\u00a0Olivia Smoliga<\/strong> and Leah Smith\u00a0<\/strong>has been thrown around as one of the best classes ever, but there isn’t one that is widely classified as the best.<\/p>\n The class of 2015 will certainly be one people will not forget.<\/p>\n The senior class was so good that two of the swimmers deferred their enrollment to focus on training for the Olympics. Ledecky and Weitzeil didn’t start college until the fall of 2016 after swimming at the Rio Olympic Games.<\/p>\n The class was so good that two of its best swimmers didn’t even win an individual NCAA title, and they both swam in an individual final at the World Championships. Michigan’s\u00a0Siobhan Haughey\u00a0<\/strong>and Texas A&M’s\u00a0Sydney Pickrem\u00a0<\/strong>both had fabulous careers but could not get that elusive individual title. Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Cal’s\u00a0Katie McLaughlin\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Amy Bilquist<\/strong>, who never won an individual title either.<\/p>\n The class was so good that two of its members went pro and didn’t finish four years.\u00a0Ledecky and\u00a0Kathleen Baker\u00a0<\/strong>went pro after last season.<\/p>\n The class was so good that two swimmers swept at least one event at NCAAs all four years. Stanford’s\u00a0Ella Eastin\u00a0<\/strong>(400 IM) and Indiana’s\u00a0Lilly King\u00a0<\/strong>(100, 200 Breast) will go down in history as some of the best NCAA swimmers of all-time.<\/p>\n The class was so good that three of the last four CSCAA swimmers of the year were in this graduating class. King (2016), Baker (2017) and Eastin (2018) were all the swimmers of the year at one point. And Louisville’s\u00a0Mallory Comerford\u00a0<\/strong>was pretty close to winning it this year in 2019.<\/p>\n And you can’t forget\u00a0Penn State’s\u00a0Ally McHugh<\/strong>, who won the 1650 this past weekend at her final NCAAs.<\/p>\n It is safe to say this class will be one to remember in the sport of swimming.<\/p>\nKatie Ledecky<\/h2>\n