{"id":639003,"date":"2026-03-19T15:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T22:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=639003"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:26:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:26:57","slug":"ncaa-womens-championships-bella-sims-holds-off-lucy-bell-for-400-im-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-womens-championships-bella-sims-holds-off-lucy-bell-for-400-im-title\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Women\u2019s Championships: Bella Sims Holds off Lucy Bell for 400 IM Title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NCAA Women\u2019s Championships: Bella Sims Holds off Lucy Bell for 400 IM Title<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bella Sims<\/strong> knew the charge was going to come from <strong>Lucy Bell<\/strong> on breaststroke Thursday night. When they turned for freestyle, the Michigan junior had enough left in the tank.<\/p>\n<p>Sims went 3:58.08 to win the NCAA title in the 400 individual medley at Georgia Tech\u2019s McAuley Natatorium. She held off Bell by .64 seconds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teagan O\u2019Dell<\/strong> was third in 3:59.43, fending off <strong>Ella Jansen<\/strong> of Tennessee by .16 seconds. Virginia scored in fifth and eighth, with <strong>Katie Grimes<\/strong> and <strong>Aimee Canny,<\/strong> respectively. <strong>Caroline Bricker<\/strong> was sixth, <strong>Rosie Murphy<\/strong> of UCLA seventh.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/swimmeetresults.tech\/NCAA-Division-I-Women-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Live Results<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/a-final-look-at-the-psych-sheets-for-the-ncaa-womens-championships\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Psych Sheets<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/virginia-favored-to-win-sixth-consecutive-ncaa-womens-title-team-standings-predictions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Preview<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/meet\/2026-ncaa-division-i-womens-swimming-and-diving-championship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NCAA Women\u2019s Championships Meet Page<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/swimming-women\/article\/2026-02-25\/2026-ncaa-di-womens-swimming-and-diving-championships-schedule-selections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Streaming Information<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;It means the world,&#8221; Sims said. &#8220;I had a lot of goals going into this meet but intentions were different than any other NCAA meet. Being able to do this and contribute to this team, I couldn&#8217;t be more happy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sims went to the front early and led the whole way. She had O\u2019Dell for company in butterfly and then Grimes in second place on the backstroke leg. O\u2019Dell pushed into second on the first 50 of breaststroke.<\/p>\n<p>But Bell came roaring on the second. Third place in each of the last two years, the Stanford senior split 32.45-32.93 on breaststroke when everyone else was toiling in the 34s if they were lucky. That put her within a half-second of Sims for the final 100. Not only did she hold it, she outsplit Sims on the final 50, coming home in 27.14. Only Jansen in fourth was quicker in the eighth 50.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wanted to take fly easy speed, build it on backstroke and then worked on my pullouts in the breaststroke,&#8221; Sims said. &#8220;Swimming my own race was probably the most important thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bricker, the reigning champion, was never a factor for the title in sixth. Grimes finished fourth last year. Bell was third with Bricker fourth in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Dell had entered as the 13th seed. Murphy was up from 11th to get into the A final for UCLA. He was 31st in this event last year.<\/p>\n<p>Virginia scored <strong>Leah Hayes<\/strong> in 10th place in the morning, though <strong>Sophia Umstead<\/strong> missed out on a score. Stanford had <strong>Emily Thompson<\/strong> 11th, a spot ahead of Texas\u2019 <strong>Campbell Stoll.<\/strong><\/p>\n<pre><b>Event 5  Women 400 Yard IM<\/b>\r\n=========================================================================\r\n         NCAA: N 3:54.60  3\/16\/2018 Ella Eastin, Stanford\r\n         Meet: M 3:54.60  3\/16\/2018 Ella Eastin, Stanford\r\n     American: A 3:54.60  3\/16\/2018 Ella Eastin, Stanford\r\n      US Open: O 3:54.60  3\/16\/2018 Ella Eastin, Stanford\r\n         Pool: P 3:57.25  3\/18\/2022 Alex Walsh, Virginia\r\n    Name                 Year School            Prelims     Finals Points \r\n=========================================================================\r\n<b>                       === Championship Final ===                        <\/b>\r\n \r\n  1 Sims, Bella            JR Michigan          4:01.07    3:58.08   20  \r\n    r:+0.56  24.69        53.39 (28.70)\r\n        1:23.71 (30.32)     1:52.75 (29.04)\r\n        2:27.49 (34.74)     3:02.45 (34.96)\r\n        3:30.62 (28.17)     3:58.08 (27.46)\r\n  2 Bell, Lucy             SR Stanford          4:01.52    3:58.72   17  \r\n    r:+0.69  25.71        54.73 (29.02)\r\n        1:26.66 (31.93)     1:57.55 (30.89)\r\n        2:30.00 (32.45)     3:02.93 (32.93)\r\n        3:31.58 (28.65)     3:58.72 (27.14)\r\n  3 O'Dell, Teagan         FR California        4:01.78    3:59.43   16  \r\n    r:+0.75  25.12        54.15 (29.03)\r\n        1:24.69 (30.54)     1:54.25 (29.56)\r\n        2:28.65 (34.40)     3:03.68 (35.03)\r\n        3:32.11 (28.43)     3:59.43 (27.32)\r\n  4 Jansen, Ella           SO Tennessee         4:00.24    3:59.59   15  \r\n    r:+0.73  25.37        54.52 (29.15)\r\n        1:24.80 (30.28)     1:54.32 (29.52)\r\n        2:29.22 (34.90)     3:04.71 (35.49)\r\n        3:32.73 (28.02)     3:59.59 (26.86)\r\n  5 Grimes, Katie          SO Virginia          4:02.46    4:00.56   14  \r\n    r:+0.66  25.54        54.49 (28.95)\r\n        1:24.51 (30.02)     1:54.13 (29.62)\r\n        2:29.64 (35.51)     3:05.52 (35.88)\r\n        3:33.25 (27.73)     4:00.56 (27.31)\r\n  6 Bricker, Caroline      JR Stanford          4:03.65    4:02.23   13  \r\n    r:+0.65  25.55        54.71 (29.16)\r\n        1:26.86 (32.15)     1:57.75 (30.89)\r\n        2:31.79 (34.04)     3:06.24 (34.45)\r\n        3:34.62 (28.38)     4:02.23 (27.61)\r\n  7 Murphy, Rosie          SR UCLA              4:02.22    4:03.55   12  \r\n    r:+0.66  25.37        54.32 (28.95)\r\n        1:25.29 (30.97)     1:56.00 (30.71)\r\n        2:30.38 (34.38)     3:05.87 (35.49)\r\n        3:35.24 (29.37)     4:03.55 (28.31)\r\n  8 Canny, Aimee           SR Virginia          4:03.20    4:05.16   11  \r\n    r:+0.73  25.58        54.95 (29.37)\r\n        1:26.94 (31.99)     1:58.56 (31.62)\r\n        2:33.32 (34.76)     3:08.38 (35.06)\r\n        3:37.15 (28.77)     4:05.16 (28.01)\r\n \r\n<b>                          === Preliminaries ===                          <\/b>\r\n \r\n  9 Brown, Emily           SO Tennessee         4:04.09               9  \r\n     r:0.71  25.65        54.62 (28.97)\r\n        1:25.82 (31.20)     1:55.90 (30.08)\r\n        2:30.42 (34.52)     3:06.98 (36.56)\r\n        3:36.20 (29.22)     4:04.09 (27.89)\r\n 10 Hayes, Leah            SO Virginia          4:04.12               7  \r\n     r:0.79  26.06        55.40 (29.34)\r\n        1:26.34 (30.94)     1:57.42 (31.08)\r\n        2:31.67 (34.25)     3:06.65 (34.98)\r\n        3:35.83 (29.18)     4:04.12 (28.29)\r\n 11 Thompson, Emily        SO Stanford          4:04.74               6  \r\n     r:0.62  26.06        55.52 (29.46)\r\n        1:27.08 (31.56)     1:59.06 (31.98)\r\n        2:33.20 (34.14)     3:08.84 (35.64)\r\n        3:36.99 (28.15)     4:04.74 (27.75)\r\n 12 Stoll, Campbell        JR Texas             4:04.99               5  \r\n     r:0.66  25.34        54.53 (29.19)\r\n        1:26.02 (31.49)     1:56.27 (30.25)\r\n        2:30.96 (34.69)     3:06.83 (35.87)\r\n        3:36.36 (29.53)     4:04.99 (28.63)\r\n 13 Bellard, Hannah        JR Michigan          4:05.36               4  \r\n     r:0.74  25.19        53.84 (28.65)\r\n        1:25.88 (32.04)     1:57.66 (31.78)\r\n        2:33.10 (35.44)     3:10.15 (37.05)\r\n        3:38.54 (28.39)     4:05.36 (26.82)\r\n 14 Kozan, Justina         SR USC               4:05.42               3  \r\n     r:0.67  26.27        56.74 (30.47)\r\n        1:28.55 (31.81)     2:00.04 (31.49)\r\n        2:34.76 (34.72)     3:10.62 (35.86)\r\n        3:38.71 (28.09)     4:05.42 (26.71)\r\n 15 Macaulay, Mary         JR UNC               4:05.61               2  \r\n     r:0.71  26.21        55.50 (29.29)\r\n        1:26.78 (31.28)     1:57.80 (31.02)\r\n        2:32.29 (34.49)     3:07.16 (34.87)\r\n        3:36.38 (29.22)     4:05.61 (29.23)\r\n 16 Tiltmann, Reese        JR Indiana           4:06.02               1  \r\n     r:0.73  27.09        57.36 (30.27)\r\n        1:28.98 (31.62)     2:00.08 (31.10)\r\n        2:34.49 (34.41)     3:08.97 (34.48)\r\n        3:37.64 (28.67)     4:06.02 (28.38)<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NCAA Women\u2019s Championships: Bella Sims Holds off Lucy Bell for 400 IM Title Bella Sims knew the charge was going to come from Lucy Bell on breaststroke Thursday night. When<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8367,"featured_media":638950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[137587,67526,126572,176,75365,120548,127681,102998,546,126346,327,137610,177,61,543],"class_list":["post-639003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-2026-ncaa-division-i-womens-swimming-and-diving-championship","tag-aimee-canny","tag-bella-sims","tag-california","tag-caroline-bricker","tag-ella-jansen","tag-katie-grimes","tag-lucy-bell","tag-michigan","tag-rosie-murphy","tag-stanford","tag-tegan-odell","tag-tennessee","tag-ucla","tag-virginia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>NCAA Women\u2019s Championships: Bella Sims Holds off Lucy Bell for 400 IM Title<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bella Sims knew the charge was going to come from Lucy Bell on breaststroke. 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