The Auburn Tigers’ men’s swim and dive team competed at the NCAA Championships in Atlanta, Ga., this week. The Tigers made the most of a dominant first day to finish the four-day event in 15th place overall, tallying 55 total points.
This result is one the Tigers can hang their hat on, as their 17th-place finish is an improvement from their 32nd-place finish in the 2025 championships. The Tigers maintained a top-20 ranking every day of the event, scoring 10 or more points in all but one day. This result brings a satisfying conclusion to the Tigers’ 2025-26 season, while also providing the team with much to look forward to in the future.
Day one of the championship on Wednesday was the Tigers’ best single-day performance of the entire week. Despite only participating in two events, the 200-yard medley relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay, Auburn totaled 22 points on the day to finish in 12th place, with all of the participants receiving All-American honors.
In the 200-yard medley, the Auburn quartet of senior Kalle Makinen, sophomore Uros Zivanovic, senior Sohib Khaled and sophomore Warner Russ combined to finish with a time of 1:22.37, a near school record, to finish 12th in the event. Russ also competed in the 800-yard freestyle alongside freshmen Abdalla Nasr, Daniel Krichevsky and Luke Bledsoe. Together, the four Tigers set a school record time of 6:10.77 to finish in 11th place overall.
The second day proved much less eventful for the Tigers, scoring just eight points in total and dropping to 15th place, but it still had some highlights.
Nasr continued his strong weekend, this time as a solo swimmer in the 100-yard fly, finishing with a time of 44.65 to take home 12th place. Sophomore diver Ethan Swart became the eighth Tiger to receive an All-American honorable mention on Thursday, courtesy of a 14th-place finish in the 1-meter with a score of 328.30.
Days three and four saw Auburn continue solid individual performances, combining to score 25 points and ending up in 17th place for the entire championship.
No performance beat that of Nasr, who secured a first-team All-American honor in the 200-yard fly after an impressive eighth-place finish in the finals. Nasr also took home three All-American honorable mentions, as well, capping off the best individual performance Auburn has seen in recent memory. Five of the eight Tigers who received All-American nods were sophomores or younger.
Altogether, the week saw significant improvement from last season, strong individual performances, two new school records, eight All-American honorable mentions in 15 different events and one All-American first-team recipient. The future certainly looks bright for the young, exciting Tigers’ squad.
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Jonathan is a freshman majoring in industrial and systems engineering. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2025.
