Alex McCormick (center) and Kyle Wolford (right) finished first and third in the 200 yard backstroke at NCAAs. (d3photography.com)
For Washington University senior Alex McCormick, becoming a national champion was a dream four years in the making. At the 2024 NCAA Division III Championships, he turned that into a reality, swimming a time of 1:43.40 to take home the crown in the 200-yard backstroke.
“It was really special because I have been working for four years for this and it’s been my goal ever since coming in to win the 200 backstroke, I have always been focused on it these past four years,” he said.
McCormick’s individual accomplishment was part of an impressive team performance as the WashU men’s swim team placed 11th with 155 points at the meet and the women’s team placed 19th scoring 46 points. Across the four day, 40-event meet, in Greensboro, NC, the Bears notched 14 All-American finishes in individual events and six in relays.
“Any time you post strong team finishes at the NCAA level you have to feel good as a team,” head coach Brad Shively wrote in a statement to Student Life about the Bears results. “Every strong performance we had at the NCAA Championships was a result of teammates pushing and supporting each other in practice and in meets.”
McCormick also received the Elite 90 Award, an award given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average at each national championship. McCormick has a 4.0 GPA at WashU while majoring in mechanical engineering, becoming the first WashU swimmer and the 17th student-athlete from WashU to receive the award.
“It obviously meant a lot,” he said about receiving the award. “Obviously swimming is super important to me but also school was one of the main reasons I came to [WashU].”
McCormick (right) and Wolford (center) embrace after the 200 yard backstroke. (d3photography.com)
Alongside his national championship and Elite 90 recognition, McCormick also placed third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 47.09 seconds and placed 10th in the 400-yard medley relay, alongside junior Nathan Lin, senior Austin Bick, and sophomore Ethan Feng, swimming a time of 3:16.69.
Just as it has been all season, the 200- and 400-yard individual medley (IM) was a strength for the Bears. On the men’s side, McCormick placed fifth in the 200 IM, setting a school record with a time of 1:47.01. In the 400 IM, junior Danny Sibley notched eighth with a time of 3:57.43.
On the women’s side, sophomore Rin Iimi placed 11th and 14th in the 200 IM and 400 IM with respective times of 2:04.58 and 4:29.00 Both finishes were good enough to earn the Maryland native All-American honors.
“I think it’s always exciting to final at nationals because a lot of times [at] other meets it’s more guaranteed that you’ll final, but at nationals…if you have a bad morning swim, you’re not gonna get a chance to swim at night,” Iimi said. “It’s just a different environment.”
Backstroke was also a strength for the Bears, with senior Kyle Wolford finishing less than two seconds behind McCormick to finish third with a time of 1:45.23. In the 100-yard backstroke, McCormick and Wolford both made the finals, finishing third and ninth respectively to earn the duo All-American honors.
Just as they have all season, the Bears depth showed in relay events, where the Bears posted six All-American finishes. In the 800-yard freestyle relay, the men’s team placed fifth with a time of 6:33.66, the highest finish for any Bears relay throughout the meet, while the women’s team placed eighth with a time of 7:29.89. The men’s 200-yard freestyle relay, which finished in 14th place, and 400-yard medley relay, which finished in 10th, also both earned All-American finishes.
The women’s 800-yard freestyle relay team placed eighth at nationals. (d3photography.com)
Two of the Bears’ All-American finishes came in the final event of the meet: the 400 freestyle relay. In the men’s event, Sibley, Bick, junior Justin Rockaway, and sophomore Ethan Feng swam a time of 2:59.45, 0.10 seconds faster than their prelims time, to notch a 10th place finish and All-American honors. The young women’s team of Iimi, first-year Peyton Watson, first-year Rachel Bello, and junior Isabella Barrientos posted a time of 3:29.04, finishing 16th and earning the squad All-American honors. Iimi noted that the Bears’ depth was a strength for the team at the meet.
“It was really exciting for us to bring 13 girls on the women’s side and we got to bring three divers, which hasn’t happened in like over 10 years,” she said. “It was really exciting.”
Shively, echoed this sentiment, writing that, “We were able to bring a large team to the NCAA Championships in part due to relay strength. Additionally, since relays are double the points of individual events, it helps to add to the tally of our team points so we prioritized relays at the beginning of the season.”
Outside of the swimming pool, WashU found success in the diving well, where the team has had a record breaking season. First-years Madison Okon and Shanze Karimi, both of whom finished in the top-12 at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships in February, both earned All-American honors in the three-meter dive. Okon placed 15th tallying 394.55 points with Karimi finishing ten points behind in 16th, with a total of 384.50.
The 2024 NCAA Championships concluded a strong season for the Bears that saw multiple swimmers and divers break school records and both teams finish inside of the top 20 at the national championships for the first time since 2019.