Youth is Served: Cal Women Swim to 4th at NCAA Meet

Freshmen and sophomores lead the way as the Bears post their highest national finish in five years

The Cal women's swim team celebrates a fourth-place national finish | Photo by Jack Spitser

With freshmen and sophomores continuing to lead the way, the Cal women’s swim team climbed from sixth place to fourth on the final day of the NCAA Championships at McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta on Saturday.

No one challenged` Virginia, which captured its sixth consecutive national title with 589 points. Runnerup Stanford was more than 200 back at 380.5.

But Cal scored 104 points on the final day to surge past Tennessee and Michigan to place fourth with 303 points. 

Underclassmen accounted for 89 of those 104 points and seven freshmen and sophomores finished the four days having scored 261 points— better than 86 percent of the team’s total.

Cal’s highest finish at the meet in five years certainly was an encouraging performance and suggests bigger things over the next season or two.

Cal placed five entries in finals on Saturday, with freshman Teagan O’Dell, (1:53.76) and sophomore Mia West (1:52.96) finishing second and third the 200-yard individual medley to give the Bears 33 points. 

Sophomore Mary-Ambre Moluh was sixth in the 100 free (46.30) and O’Dell returned to go sixth in the 200 back (1:49.70), each picking up 13 points.

The foursome of West, Moluh, O’Dell and freshman Claire Weinstein touched fourth in the 400 free relay (3:07.47) to secure 30 points.

On Friday, Weinstein, a 2024 U.S. Olympian, captured the 500 free in a school-record time of 4:30.09, making her the first Golden Bear woman in seven years to win an event at the NCAA meet.

The 19-year-old from Las Vegas scored in five events, earned podium finishes in three and totaled 62.5 points (giving participants a one-quarter share of relay points). Classmate O’Dell of Chino Hills, California, scored in seven events to post 74 points. 

Sophomore Moluh, a native of France, and West, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, contributed 52 and 37.5 points, respectively. Five Cal underclassmen accounted for 11 first-team All-America nods and the Bears broke four program records.

The Cal men’s swim team, which has finished among the top-two at the NCAA meet for 15 consecutive seasons, begins competition at the collegiate nationals next Wednesday.

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