{"id":607945,"date":"2025-03-21T21:11:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T04:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=607945"},"modified":"2025-03-22T00:29:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T07:29:31","slug":"ncaa-womens-championships-day-3-finals-virginia-caps-off-dominant-night-with-second-fastest-400-medley-relay-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-womens-championships-day-3-finals-virginia-caps-off-dominant-night-with-second-fastest-400-medley-relay-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Women’s Championships, Day 3 Finals: Virginia Caps Off Dominant Night With Second-Fastest 400 Medley Relay Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Women’s Championships, Day 3 Finals: Virginia Caps Off Dominant Night With Second-Fastest 400 Medley Relay Ever<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three individual winners from Friday evening teamed up to put on a show of dominance in the 400 medley relay, the sort of performance college swimming fans have come to expect from the University of Virginia at the NCAA Championships. The Cavaliers have now captured the 400 medley relay title in four consecutive seasons, all with sisters\u00a0Alex Walsh<\/strong> and\u00a0Gretchen Walsh<\/strong> on the squad while newcomers\u00a0Claire Curzan<\/strong> and\u00a0Anna Moesch<\/strong> handled the bookend legs.<\/p>\n

Fresh off her 100 back win an hour-and-a-half earlier, Curzan faced a rematch with Florida’s\u00a0Bella Sims<\/strong> on the opening leg. This time, the Virginia leadoff swimmer could not hold off her counterpart, coming in nine hundredths behind (49.54 to 49.63), but then the Walsh sisters went to work. Alex clocked 56.37 on the breaststroke leg, almost a second quicker than anyone else in history, before Gretchen went 47.35 on fly. By comparison, the next-best split belonged to Stanford’s\u00a0Torri Huske<\/strong> at 48.71.<\/p>\n

Moesch has been thrown into the fire alongside Virginia’s Olympians, and the freshman has now gone last in all three of the team’s relay wins. A split of 46.85 was sufficient to help Virginia to the wall in 3:30.20, beating the field by 4.79 seconds. The team was just behind the American and NCAA records of 3:19.58 set by the same foursome at last month’s ACC Championships, but they did eclipse the meet record of 3:21.01 set by the Walsh sisters,\u00a0Jasmine Nocentini<\/strong> and\u00a0Maxine Parker<\/strong> last season.<\/p>\n

Another 40 points gives Virginia 383 points for the competition, 89 points clear of any other team and very much on track for consecutive national title No. 5. While Virginia’s point total through Wednesday was greater than in any of the team’s previous triumphs, this time the team is slightly behind the 386.5 points scored at this point in the 2022 meet but still slightly ahead of the totals from 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

The race for second place went to Tennessee, with Lady Vols anchor\u00a0Camille Spink\u00a0<\/strong>splitting 46.45 to come from almost a second behind and pass Florida for second place.\u00a0Josephine Fuller<\/strong>,\u00a0Mona McSharry<\/strong> and\u00a0Sara Stotler<\/strong> handled the first three legs on a team that finished in 3:24.99. Florida took third in 3:25.18 with Sims,\u00a0Anita Bottazzo<\/strong>,\u00a0Olivia Peoples<\/strong> and\u00a0Micayla Cronk<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Miranda Grana<\/strong> finished off a huge night in which she placed fourth in the 100 fly and third in the 100 back by helping Indiana to a fourth-place result here, with the team finishing in 3:25.83. Meanwhile, Texas and Stanford were squaring off in lanes six and seven, and the Longhorns narrowly won the battle for fifth place, 3:26.11 to 3:26.34. That reduced Stanford’s edge over Texas for second place in the team competition to four points (292 to 288), with the Longhorns batting back from a rough Thursday with solid swims Friday combined with a 1-7-10 finish in 3-meter diving.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers, Cardinal and Longhorns will almost surely walk away with the team trophies at the end of Saturday night, but fourth place could come down to the wire between Indiana (209) and Tennessee (195), with Florida (177) and Louisville (160.5) also in contention.<\/p>\n