The Auburn Tigers’ women’s swim and dive team headed to McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, GA, last weekend to compete in the NCAA Championship. The team showed great resilience over the weekend, scoring 19 of their 25 points in the final two days to finish tied for 25th place overall. This marked a ten-spot improvement from their placement a year ago and more than doubled their total score from 2025. The Tigers ultimately had six athletes earn All-American honorable mentions across 10 events, with five of them being sophomores or younger, showcasing the exciting potential Auburn could have in the coming years.
Thursday saw the Tigers pick up their first points of the championship. Junior Zoey Zeller was the first Tiger to compete, swimming in the 100m breaststroke event. Zeller finished with a time of 1:00.40, placing 39th. Auburn then competed in the 200m freestyle relay, placing 14th overall with a time of 1:27.96 and earning the team six points on the day. This top-15 finish in the 200m, along with a 13th-place finish in the 400m, earned the Tigers’ freestyle relay squad, consisting of sophomore Bella Ekk, sophomore Izzy Iwasyk, graduate student Elizaveta Klevanovich, and sophomore Lora Komoroczy, All-American honorable mentions.
Auburn entered Friday in 32nd place overall but surpassed its combined point total from the first two days by the end of the day. Komoroczy continued her strong weekend, this time competing in her individual event, the 100m backstroke, where she placed 20th with a time of 51.45. However, it was true freshman Juliette Landi who stood out for the Tigers on Friday. Her combined score of 318.20 in the 3-meter diving event earned her a 10th-place finish overall. This was the Tigers’ lone top-10 finish of the weekend. Landi also earned an All-American honorable mention for her performance.
Entering the final day of the championship, Auburn sat in 29th place overall with 13 points. Once again, the relay and diving teams continued to perform well. After a 13th-place finish in the 400m freestyle relay, which capped off a strong weekend for the quartet, it was sophomore diver Emily Hallifax’s turn to impress. She built on her strong 2025 national championship performance by finishing 13th overall in the platform event. This earned the Tigers’ final All-American honorable mention of the weekend.
With the women’s championship now concluded, the men’s team will take the stage in Atlanta this Wednesday, hoping to build on what has already been a solid showing for the program.
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Jonathan is a freshman majoring in industrial and systems engineering. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2025.
