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Is the women’s senior class of 2015 one of the best of all-time in the sport of swimming?
In the fall of 2014 when the seniors were committing (because back then, swimmers waited until they were seniors to commit), the class was definitely stacked. But nobody knew how stacked the class really was.
There were the established names of Katie Ledecky and Abbey Weitzeil along with Kathleen Baker and Katie McLaughlin, who had come off a summer where they swam for Team USA at the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia when they had just finished their junior year of high school.
But the class also had up-and-comers that the swimming community did not know much about yet. There was Ella Eastin, Lilly King and Amy Bilquist who had started to establish themselves on the junior team but had not made that jump to the senior level quite yet.
There isn’t really a distinguished “best class ever.” The high school graduating class of 2013 with Missy Franklin, Lia Neal, Olivia Smoliga and Leah Smith has been thrown around as one of the best classes ever, but there isn’t one that is widely classified as the best.
The class of 2015 will certainly be one people will not forget.
The senior class was so good that two of the swimmers deferred their enrollment to focus on training for the Olympics. Ledecky and Weitzeil didn’t start college until the fall of 2016 after swimming at the Rio Olympic Games.
The class was so good that two of its best swimmers didn’t even win an individual NCAA title, and they both swam in an individual final at the World Championships. Michigan’s Siobhan Haughey and Texas A&M’s Sydney Pickrem both had fabulous careers but could not get that elusive individual title. Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Cal’s Katie McLaughlin and Amy Bilquist, who never won an individual title either.
The class was so good that two of its members went pro and didn’t finish four years. Ledecky and Kathleen Baker went pro after last season.
The class was so good that two swimmers swept at least one event at NCAAs all four years. Stanford’s Ella Eastin (400 IM) and Indiana’s Lilly King (100, 200 Breast) will go down in history as some of the best NCAA swimmers of all-time.
The class was so good that three of the last four CSCAA swimmers of the year were in this graduating class. King (2016), Baker (2017) and Eastin (2018) were all the swimmers of the year at one point. And Louisville’s Mallory Comerford was pretty close to winning it this year in 2019.
And you can’t forget Penn State’s Ally McHugh, who won the 1650 this past weekend at her final NCAAs.
It is safe to say this class will be one to remember in the sport of swimming.
Katie Ledecky
NCAA Titles: 8
- 2017: 800 Free Relay, 500 Free, 200 Free, 1650, 400 Free Relay
- 2018: 800 Free Relay, 500 Free, 1650
Kathleen Baker
NCAA Titles: 5
- 2017: 200 IM, 100 Back, 200 Medley Relay, 200 Back
- 2018: 200 Back
Abbey Weitzeil
NCAA Titles: 5
- 2017: 200 Free Relay
- 2019: 200 Free Relay, 50 Free, 400 Medley Relay, 400 Free Relay
Ella Eastin
NCAA Titles: 12
- 2016: 200 IM, 400 IM
- 2017: 800 Free Relay, 400 IM, 200 Fly
- 2018: 800 Free Relay, 200 IM, 400 IM, 200 Fly, 400 Free Relay
- 2019: 800 Free Relay, 400 IM
Lilly King
NCAA Titles: 8
- 2016: 100 Breast, 200 Breast
- 2017: 100 Breast, 200 Breast
- 2018: 100 Breast, 200 Breast
- 2019: 100 Breast, 200 Breast
Mallory Comerford
https://www.instagram.com/p/tWHI4XIg0s/
NCAA Titles: 4
Sydney Pickrem
NCAA Titles: 0
- 200 Breast: 4th fastest performer all-time
- 200 IM: 5th fastest performer all-time
- 400 IM: 6th fastest performer all-time
Siobhan Haughey
NCAA Titles: 0
- 200 Free: 7th fastest performer all-time
- 100 Free: 8th fastest performer all-time
- 200 IM: 11th fastest performer all-time
Amy Bilquist
https://www.instagram.com/p/t4_MnSkIHj/
NCAA Titles: 5
- 2016: 200 Free Relay
- 2017: 200 Free Relay
- 2019: 200 Free Relay, 400 Medley Relay, 400 Free Relay
Katie McLaughlin
NCAA Titles: 3
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Kalina Grace Emaus
Kalina Grace Emaus
Claire Yurkovich why arent you mentioned??
Best Indiana HS State Meet ever!!…Bilquist, Adams ,Tetzloff, King, Burchill.
Kalina Grace Emaus
@. Breanna Stuart!!! It certainly was!!!??