On March 14, the University of Virginia women’s swimming & diving team made its way to Knoxville to compete in the 2023 NCAA championship meet. Energy levels were high, and, as UVA fourth-year Ella Nelson put it, the teammates were just trying to contain their excitement.
UVA’s swim team wasn’t the only one housing Olympians and American record holders. Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin brought their best to compete, too. But Virginia Head Coach Todd DeSorbo went into the meet with confidence. “I think arguably, we’ve got the best team that we’ve ever had here at UVA, so I feel really good,” he said.
Over the course of the meet, the UVA women’s team won every single relay, took down six new NCAA and American records, captured first in 12 out of 21 events, collected almost three times as many All-American performances, and scored over 100 points more than any other team. By Saturday, the Cavaliers won their third-straight NCAA championship title.
Prior to its NCAA championship win in 2021, UVA consistently floated in the top 10 college women’s swim teams, but wasn’t at the forefront. Current fourth-year swimmers experienced a rise to national dominance since they arrived, going from being in the mix of good teams to blowing the rest out of the water.
Lexi Cuomo, an American record holder and fourth-year swimmer, says that despite the swimmers’ ascension in national rankings, the team culture stayed the same over the past four years—with a focus on working hard for each other. “I went from kind of benefiting from having the team culture already set up like that, where I have to really put in the work to contribute to this, and now I’m the one leading it or trying my best to lead it,” she says.
Even without a change in team culture, the mark these athletes left in the world of swimming evolved over these past four years. Fourth-year Kate Douglass is leaving the women’s team with six American and NCAA records, spanning multiple strokes and distances. But while having fast times holds weight, she also considers her impact outside the water. “I just wanna be known as someone who was a good teammate, and obviously I’ve left my legacy on the record boards here and I’m really happy with that,” she says. “But I definitely think one of the main reasons why I chose UVA was because I knew I had a chance to help make this program one of the top programs in the country.”
Multiple swimmers mentioned their goal of making UVA a team that younger swimmers can look up to. “This could potentially be our third NCAA win in a row,” Nelson said a few days before the swim meet. “But I think our goal is to create the UVA legacy for all of the little girls who are little swimmers and looking up to all of us college athletes and wanting to hopefully come to UVA.”
Nelson says that “legacy” has become a motto for the team. “The easy part is setting the legacy in the pool,” she says, “but it’s also the legacy of who we are as a team and the team culture that we wanna build for the years to come.”
The end of the 2023 season means saying goodbye to a handful of elite swimmers on the team, including Douglass, Cuomo, and potentially Nelson if she doesn’t take a fifth year. Between Douglass’ individual American and NCAA records in the 100 butterfly, 200 individual medley, and 200 breaststroke, and Douglass and Cuomo’s shared American and NCAA records in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays (plus Nelson’s top-tier national performances in individual medley and breaststroke events), it’s safe to say the Cavaliers are losing some of their highest-performing swimmers.
But DeSorbo isn’t nervous for future seasons. “You can’t fill the shoes of those people. And that’s the challenge that we’ll face heading in the next year. But the way I look at it is I think you want that. You want that every year,” he says. “You want people graduating from your program that are irreplaceable.”
After a third national title, Douglass closes her collegiate chapter with nothing but positive things to say. “It’s very important to me—the third national championship of this team—because I feel like, coming into UVA, that was just all I ever wanted for the program was to be a part of a growing program, and then my second year we won our first one and then we just kept winning after that,” she says. “So yeah it’s pretty cool to see a third one now.”
DeSorbo won’t forget what these swimmers have done at UVA any time soon. “I’m forever grateful that they took that leap of faith,” he says. “And certainly they’ve come in and bought in immediately. They believed and trusted immediately, and were just really excited to be a part of the potential rise of our program. And they’ve all just been such great people and influences and leaders on our team that they’re definitely gonna leave a lasting legacy, and they play a significant role in where we are today.”