Virginia claims 4 more titles at NCAA swim championships

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Kate Douglass and sisters Alex and Gretchen Walsh each won individual titles on Friday at the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships.

Virginia leads the standings on day three of the four-day event with 374.5 points, followed by Texas with 272.5.

Douglass defended her title in a stacked 100-yard butterfly with a time of 48.46 to lower her own NCAA record. Douglass edged defending Olympic champion Maggie MacNeil of LSU at 48.51. The top three swimmers, including Stanford’s Torri Huske, all went under 49.00.

Virginia grabbed gold and silver in the 400 IM. Alex Walsh became a back-to-back champion at 3:57.24 to set a program record and Ella Nelson matched her best finish in the event at 3:59.54.

Stanford’s Taylor Ruck also won her second consecutive NCAA title in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:42.36. Virginia freshman Aimee Canny won bronze with a personal-best time of 1:42.50.

Gretchen Walsh avenged a runner-up finish in the 100-yard backstroke in 2022 with an NCAA record of 48.26. She took down two-time defending champion Katharine Berkoff for her second career NCAA individual title.

Olympic champion Lydia Jacoby won the 100-yard breaststroke with a career-best time of 57.03 and fellow Texas Longhorn Anna Elendt finished third. Defending champion Kaitlyn Dobler, of USC, came in fourth. A Texas swimmer hadn’t won the event since 1988.

Aranza Vazquez, who claimed North Carolina's first diving title in program history on Thursday, won her second event with a score of 385.80 in the 3-meter.

Virginia secured its fourth straight relay title, taking the 400 Medley in 3:22.39. The Cavaliers will try to match Stanford's clean sweep in all five relays, set five years ago.

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports