The decorated Virginia women’s swim team have wasted no time setting the national standard this season. Although they have only raced Navy, Florida and North Carolina head-to-head, the Cavalier women have a far greater agenda for the regular season than just dominating the scoreboard in a dual meet. They race to set themselves as far apart as they can from the rest of the country.
“I told our women … every meet … it's not necessarily about UNC or the person that's next to the block,” Coach Todd DeSorbo said of their dual against the Tar Heels. “At the end of the weekend, everybody's going to compare you to [the rest of the country] because that's going to be your competition at NCAAs.”
This mindset was evident Nov. 1, when No. 2 Texas, No. 3 Stanford, No.4 Tennessee and No. 5 California all had the opportunity to put up times in dual meets on the same weekend as Virginia — with Texas racing Tennessee and the West Coast programs putting on a triple dual with Arizona State, who sit at No. 18 on the women’s side.
Of these four other top-five programs, the Cavaliers will only face off against the Lady Volunteers prior to the ACC Championships. This dual will occur at their next scheduled meet — the inaugural edition of the CSCAA Power 4 Dual Meet Challenge Nov. 21-23 in Knoxville, Tenn. The competition is formatted as an innovative bracket-style mini-tournament, where Tennessee will host Virginia along with Arizona State and Michigan — all schools with historically strong swimming programs for both men and women.
Despite limited high-caliber competition in their regular season schedule, Virginia has established itself as the way-too-early favorite to hoist a historic sixth national championship trophy come March.
In a statistic of utter dominance, the Cavalier women currently have 40 top-16 national performances this season, produced by 15 different swimmers across 15 separate events — the top 16 swimmers in each event will score points at NCAA’s at Georgia Tech in March.
Only 18 Virginia swimmers will even be able to compete at the National Championships per roster quotas outlined by the NCAA, even if more technically qualify through the selection process. This places Virginia in a unique position — no other women’s program has ‘overqualified’ their NCAA roster in recent memory, with the 18-athlete cap forcing the Cavaliers to leave some swimmers behind in Charlottesville — which, although disappointing for some, is an incredibly good problem to have.
“I think we'll definitely qualify over 20 girls, maybe even more than that, which is way more than any other team in the NCAA currently,” junior and U.S. Olympian Claire Curzan said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “And I think we have the potential to have all of our NCAA qualifiers score [points] at NCAAs, which has never been done before.”
Virginia also holds the No. 1 time in six of those events thanks to freshman Sara Curtis, sophomore Anna Moesch, junior Claire Curzan and senior Aimee Canny. Curzan and Moesch both hold two No. 1 spots respectively — the 200-yard backstroke and 100-yard butterfly for Curzan and Moesch in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle.
Three of the five relays are also sitting comfortably at No. 1 — the 200-yard free, 200-yard medley and 400-yard medley relays — with the 400-yard free relay at No. 4 within one second of Louisville, NC State and Tennessee.
“On the relay front … we won all five last year [at ACCs],” DeSorbo said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “I think this is a year where we could win all five [at ACCs or NCAAs], or we could win none. I don't think we'll be outside the top three in any of them … It's just going to be a lot closer.”
The Cavaliers have yet to field a team in the 800-yard freestyle relay this season, but when they do, they will no doubt catapult to the top of the national rankings, as Moesch and Canny boast the the first and third fastest times in the nation. They are supplemented by freshman Madi Mintenko and junior Cavan Gormsen at No. 12 and 13 — Virginia’s embarrassment of riches continue.
Speaking of endless options, Canny’s range and versatility is nothing short of absurd, showing exceptional versatility and range with seven individual top-16 performances to date. Canny currently boasts the No. 1 spot in the 200 IM, No. 3 in the 200 free, 200 breast and 500 free, plus three others in the 1000 free, 50 breast and 100 breast.
“[Moesch] and Aimee Canny both have kind of risen to a whole ‘nother level this year, which is pretty awesome,” DeSorbo said. “[Canny] was unbelievable at Florida two weeks ago as well.”
But DeSorbo emphasised that it was hard to pick standout performances from the North Carolina-Virginia dual and that “every event, there was something special happening” — with a large portion of this year’s team coasting very closely below the ceiling set by Canny, Curtis, Curzan and Moesch.
“So I think this season, honestly, we might be losing two very notable swimmers, Gretchen and Alex [Walsh],” senior captain and U.S. Olympian Emma Weber said. “But if you look at the team as a whole, we've never had as much depth from top to bottom.”
Individual performances aside, another positive indicator this season came from relay performances against North Carolina. In the women’s 200-yard freestyle relay, Virginia ripped a 1:25.77 — the fastest ever relay time posted at the Aquatic & Fitness Center.
Curzan’s 21.48 leadoff became the then-No. 2 time in the nation, only behind Curtis’ 21.18. Curzan now sits at No. 4 in the event, behind Louisville senior Julia Dennis and Tennessee junior Camille Spink. Curtis and Curzan were accompanied by Moesch and graduate Bryn Greenwaldt en route to the new pool record — a significant feat, considering the names who contributed to the previous one.
“Anytime pool records here are broken, it means a lot because you have the likes of Gretchen Walsh and Kate Douglass that are on some of those relay pool records,” DeSorbo said. “So for us to be breaking pool records in October, it's really good.”
It is hard for even the most avid swim fan to make significant projections five months out from this season’s NCAA Championships — but even meet observers can say it is looking promising for a team hell-bent on achieving the six-peat once thought impossible.
“After seeing the way this team has performed so far this year,” Class of 2025 alumna Abby Kapeller, who attended the dual meet against North Carolina, said. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be coming back for another banner unveiling next year.”
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