{"id":639421,"date":"2026-03-21T17:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=639421"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:08:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:08:55","slug":"ncaa-womens-championships-virginia-completes-relay-sweep-with-ncaa-record-in-400-free-relay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-womens-championships-virginia-completes-relay-sweep-with-ncaa-record-in-400-free-relay\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Women’s Championships: Virginia Completes Relay Sweep With NCAA Record in 400 Free Relay"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Women’s Championships: Virginia Completes Relay Sweep With NCAA Record in 400 Free Relay<\/strong><\/p>\n

The University of Virginia has won all five relays at the NCAA Women’s Championships. The outcome here was never really in doubt, not with the group of sprinters the Cavaliers were rolling out for the final event of the meet. It didn’t even matter that Virginia was behind for the first half of the race.<\/p>\n

Claire Curzan<\/strong> and\u00a0Anna Moesch<\/strong> were already individual champions.\u00a0Sara Curtis<\/strong>\u00a0had made an enormous impact at her first NCAA Championships, placing second in the 50 free and third in the 100. Finally,\u00a0Madi Mintenko<\/strong> had already shown some impressive range this week, with the highly-touted freshman reaching two individual A-finals.<\/p>\n

Sprint specialists dominated the race in the opening stages: leadoff times of 46.21 from Indiana’s\u00a0Liberty Clark<\/strong>, 46.39 for Tennessee’s\u00a0Camille Spink<\/strong> and 46.55 for Texas’\u00a0Eva Okaro<\/strong> left Curzan in fourth at the start of the race, her time of 46.62 more than solid considering it came not long after she swam the second-best time in history in the 100 back. On the second leg, Mintenko came through with a 46.73 leg to move Virginia into a tie for third place.<\/p>\n

Then Moesch went to work to conclude a week where she has lived up to every bit of hype following her breakout season. The same night as she became the third-quickest swimmer ever in the 100 free, Moesch split 45.61 to put her team into the lead entering the anchor leg, and Curtis pulled away with her 46.30 on the way home.<\/p>\n

Those four splits resulted in a time of 3:05.26, taking down the NCAA and U.S. Open records of 3:05.30 established by Virginia at last month’s ACC Championships. Curzan, Curtis and Moesch had also been part of the previous record, with Aimee Canny<\/strong> also part of that team. This effort marked the first NCAA record in swimming established at this meet<\/p>\n

More importantly, Virginia beat the field by 1.46 seconds to cap off the relay sweep and the team’s sixth consecutive national title, the first time ever a women’s swimming and diving program has won six in a row. The Cavaliers won the meet by 208.5 points as they accomplished the feat the 1980s Texas team and 1990s Stanford Cardinal came up just short of.<\/p>\n

The drama here involved the battle for second in the team competition. Texas had sat in that spot most of the meet, but a brilliant final night for Stanford saw\u00a0Lucy Bell<\/strong> and\u00a0Torri Huske<\/strong> claim individual titles before\u00a0Ellie Cole<\/strong> won platform diving. Stanford came through on the relay as well. Huske went 45.83 on the second leg before\u00a0Gigi Johnson<\/strong> put forth\u00a0a 46.26 closing split. That allowed Bell to hold off a charging Texas team for second by three tenths.<\/p>\n

Stanford, with freshman\u00a0Annam Olasewere<\/strong> joining the three seniors, finished in 3:06.72. The Texas team of Okaro,\u00a0Lillie Nesty<\/strong>,\u00a0Nikolett Padar<\/strong> and\u00a0Erin Gemmell<\/strong> came in third at 3:07.02. Beating the Longhorns allowed Stanford to hold onto second place overall by four points, 380.5 to 376.5.<\/p>\n

Cal, with Mary-Ambre Moluh<\/strong> going 46.24 on the second leg and\u00a0Claire Weinstein<\/strong> finishing in 46.85, took fourth in 3:07.47. Clark’s leadoff split helped Indiana to a fifth-place finish (3:07.51).<\/p>\n