Each summer, college swimming fans look forward to recruiting – the lifeblood of any NCAA swim program. Since 2012, we’ve been ranking down the top NCAA prospects in the nation from each recruiting class. But sports are inherently unpredictable, and even the most sure-fire prospect can go awry or completely change their role over four years.
As we do each year, we’ll look back at the high school class of 2021, which just finished four years of college eligibility this spring.
First, a few notes:
- Most of the data we’re tracking here deals with NCAA scoring. Obviously, some swimmers are great assets for their teams in dual meets and conference competition without ever being national factors. While we don’t discount the impact of those types of swimmers, the difference in competition between various teams’ dual meet schedules and conference meets makes NCAA scoring the best “apples to apples” comparisons between swimmers.
- Relays are another point of contention, as a swimmer in a strong program has more opportunity for NCAA relays, though they also have more competition for those relay spots. We’ve left relay results out of the data below, except where specifically indicated. That, too, gives us a more fair comparison between athletes.
- We don’t rank diving recruits, but we have started to track individual diving scoring, which is helpful in determining how much of an impact a diver is likely to have on NCAA finish.
- We did our best to scour NCAA results over the past four-plus years, but it’s certainly possible we made a mistake in compiling our data. If you spot an error, please respectfully let us know in the comment section so we can update our work!
We only include domestic recruits in our recruit rankings, as it’s often harder to predict if and when an international recruit will join the NCAA, and which class they should be ranked with. However, we’ve gone back through and tallied up all individual scorers that roughly fit into this class – international and domestic.
REVISITING OUR TOP 20
Check out this post for our analysis of the top 20 recruits in the high school class of 2021. For the sake of being the most accurate in terms of gauging a swimmer’s pre-college ability, we’re using the re-ank of the class after their senior year of high school rather than the original ranks from their junior seasons.
Here’s a look at our top 20 recruits, plus how many individual points they scored at NCAAs in each of their four years:
Note: we’ve made an effort to put a dash (–) in a season in which an athlete didn’t compete (or was cut short due to injury) rather than “no invite”. If you see an error please let us know in the comments.
The Hits:
- The two recruits from this class who have eclipsed the 100-point barrier through four NCAA seasons have both evolved into two of the best freestylers in the United States at present, Luke Hobson and Jack Alexy.
- After scoring 18 points as a freshman, Hobson has reeled off three straight NCAA titles in the 200 free, eclipsing 40 points in all three seasons including a career-high 45 points as a senior. The 200 and 500 free were Hobson’s bread and butter, and after scoring one point in the mile as a freshman, he transitioned to the 100 free as his third event, placing 17th as a sophomore before back-to-back ‘B’ final appearances.
- Alexy finished 23rd in the 50 and 100 free as a freshman, but really took off after that, scoring 121.5 points for Cal in his last three seasons, including 49 as a junior when he was 2nd in the 200 free and 3rd in both the 50 and 100 free. As a senior, he was 4th in the 100 free and 5th in the 50 and 200 free.
- The top-ranked recruit in this class coming out of high school, NC State’s Aiden Hayes, was well on his way to surpassing 100 points before missing his senior season due to injury. His teammate Arsenio Bustos also missed the season due to injury after scoring 54 points combined in his sophomore and junior years.
- The #2 ranked recruit, Josh Matheny, scored in his sophomore, junior and senior seasons, with 24 in 2023 being his best showing when he was 4th in the 200 breast and 9th in the 100 breast. He made his second career ‘A’ final last season, taking 6th in the 100 breast.
- Penn’s Matt Fallon has finished no lower than 3rd in the 200 breast across his three NCAA Championship appearances, missing the 2023 meet due to injury. He also scored in the 100 breast as a freshman and produced 56.5 points in three seasons.
- The #20 recruit Daniel Matheson had his highest finish as a freshman come in the mile, where he was 26th, and then he scored in three straight years at Arizona State, including 14 points as a junior when he was 11th in both the 1650 and 400 IM.
- Indiana’s Luke Barr progressed each of his four years with the Hoosiers, going from missing an NCAA invite in 2022, to qualifying in 2023, to scoring in one event in 2024, and ultimately scoring in both the 100 breast (15th) and 200 IM (12th) as a senior.
The Misses:
- Jack Aikins, the #3 ranked recruit in the class, scored nine points as a freshman at Virginia, but was off form and didn’t score at the 2023 and 2025 meets. He redshirted his junior year and narrowly missed qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team.
- The two top Texas recruits in this class, Anthony Grimm and Tim Connery, never scored an individual point for the Longhorns during their careers. Both swam for Texas at NCAAs as freshmen in 2022 and then transferred to Virginia. Connery went on to score four points for the Cavaliers in 2024.
- David Curtiss chipped in a few points for NC State in his first two years while also swimming on some NCAA relays, but announced he was leaving the program prior to the 2023-24 season.
- Among the recruits ranked 11-20, six of them never scored at NCAAs, and Matt Fenlon (Stanford) and Ziyad Saleem (Cal) never earned an invite.
- None of the Honorable Mention recruits scored, with only Tyler Lu (Northwestern) and Mateo Miceli (Alabama) earning an NCAA invite during their career.
OTHER IMPACTFUL RECRUITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2021
Of course, not every contributor comes from our top 20 list. Some swimmers develop extremely well in college. Some swimmers slip under our radar, or don’t prove to be late bloomers once they hit the NCAA.
We dug through NCAA results to find the best American swimmers from this class to not appear on our top 20 list. Again, it’s not always easy to account for redshirt years, gap years or mistakes in an athlete’s listed class each season. So if we forgot anyone, please let us know in the comments.
Standouts:
- Gabriel Jett was the only unranked domestic recruit to score in four straight NCAA meets and his 132-point total ranks 2nd overall in this class among Americans, only trailing Luke Hobson. Jett, who was featured as a BOTR distance freestyler coming into college, developed into a versatile high-end option for Cal, earning ‘A’ final appearances in four different events during his career. After placing 6th in the 200 fly as a freshman, Jett was a top-eight finisher in eight of his final nine individual races at NCAAs, going three-for-three in ‘A’ finals in his sophomore and junior seasons including a runner-up finish in the 200 free in 2023. As a senior, he was 3rd in the 200 free and 200 back, but had an off swim on Thursday and was 30th in the 500 free.
- The other 100-point scorer among unranked domestic recruit is Chris Guiliano, who didn’t score as a freshman at Notre Dame but has reeled off 89.5 points in his upperclass years after contributing 16 as a sophomore. In 2024, Guiliano made the first ‘A’ finals of his career by placing 3rd in the 200 free, 4th in the 50 free and 5th in the 100 free for the Fighting Irish, parlaying that success into a berth on the U.S. Olympic team and ultimately walking away with two Olympic medals in Paris. After Notre Dame was suspended for the 2024-25 season, he transferred to Texas, placing 2nd in the 200 free and 5th in the 50 and 100 free to help push the Longhorns to the national title.
- Florida’s Julian Smith was among the swimmers who steadily progressed throughout his four-year career, starting out by missing an NCAA invite as a freshman and then finishing with an individual national title as a senior. Smith made the first ‘A’ final of his career as a junior, placing 7th in the 100 breast, and then followed up by winning the 100 breast and placing 6th in the 200 IM as a senior. He also grabbed hold of the NCAA, American and U.S. Open Record in the 100 breast at the 2025 SEC Championships.
- Two other unranked breaststrokers who improved over the course of their careers were Brown’s Jack Kelly and Indiana’s Finn Brooks, who both scored 22 points as seniors.
- Kelly was an ‘A’ finalist in the 200 breast as a junior, and then cracked the top eight in both breast events as a senior to finish his career with 33 points.
- Brooks raced the 100 breast for the first time in two years last season, placing 2nd at Big Tens in a PB of 51.30 and then scoring a few points in the 100 fly at NCAAs. He took another massive leap forward in the 100 breast this season, cracking 50 seconds at Big Tens (49.94) before placing 4th at NCAAs. Brooks also scored in the 50 free and 100 fly as a senior, potting 22 points to bring his career total to 24.
- ASU’s Patrick Sammon and Florida’s Mason Laur scored in the last three years of their careers, with Sammon hitting his all-time best total of 15 as a senior after taking 9th in the 200 free and 11th in the 100 free. Laur set his career-high of 13 points last season, making the ‘A’ final of the 400 IM, and this year he was 11th in the event for six points.
INTERNATIONAL RECRUITS
Standouts:
- After scoring 177 out of a possible 180 points in his three seasons at Arizona State, Leon Marchand turned pro and forwent his final season of NCAA eligibility, but still leads all swimmers in this class, though Jordan Crooks nearly ran him down.
- Crooks followed up a 29.5-point freshman campaign with three straight seasons of 45 or more, hitting a career-high 49.5 as a senior after winning the 50 free, placing 2nd in the 100 free and taking 6th in the 200 free. The 50 free win marked the second individual title of his career, and Crooks also became the NCAA Record holder in the prelims of the 100 free (39.83) before taking 2nd in the final.
- Gal Cohen Groumi was a reliable contributor in his four years at Michigan, following up a career-high 37.5 points as a junior with 22.5 this season, placing 7th in the 200 IM, 11th in the 200 free and 12th in the 200 fly.
- Stanford’s Ron Polonsky has consistently scored throughout his career, and stepped up as a senior by making two ‘A’ finals after he wasn’t predicted to make any in the SwimSwam previews. Polonsky hit a lifetime best of 33 points in 2025, placing 5th in both the 100 breast and 200 IM and adding a 12th-place finish in the 200 breast (setting personal best times in all three).
- Alabama’s Charlie Hawke was a relay-only swimmer as a freshman, scored one point as a sophomore, and then took off in final two seasons, scoring 29 points in 2024 and 28 more this past season. Hawke has finished 4th in the 200 free in back-to-back seasons, and was 5th in the 500 free in 2024 and 6th in 2025.
- Rafael Miroslaw scored in all four years with Indiana, while Minnesota’s Bar Soloveychik scored in three of his four seasons with the Gophers, both having their best performances as juniors.
DIVING RECRUITS
Standouts:
- Carson Tyler and Quentin Henninger were truly a dynamic duo for Indiana throughout their careers, combining for 288 points and matching 49-point totals as seniors. Tyler only scored five as a freshman, and then averaged a staggering 46.6 over the final three seasons of his career, winning three straight platform titles and two consecutive 3-meter titles. Henninger was the 1-meter champion this past season, giving IU a sweep of the diving events.
- Stanford’s Jack Ryan progressively got better as his career went on, starting with five points in 2022 and finishing with 33 in 2025 for 85 total.
- Purdues’ Jordan Rzepka had one off showing as a sophomore, but scored 70 points across the other three championship meets, including a career-high 36 as a senior.
- USC’s Shangfei Wang scored in four straight seasons for 62 total points, posting half of them in his junior year, while Clayton Chaplin (OSU) and Cameron Cash (Pitt) are two others who were among the top scorers from this class, both improving as their careers went on.
ALL INDIVIDUAL SCORERS IN THIS CLASS
ARCHIVES: REVISITING RECRUIT RANKINGS
