PASADENA, Calif. — Caltech Women's Swim & Dive put forth another marquee season in 2023-24, setting three new school records among 50 all-time program top-10 performances. The talented squad additionally earned four dual meet victories over SCIAC opponents and finished second in the four-team Caltech Invite.
Outside of the pool and in the classrooms and labs, the team earned a CSCAA Fall Scholar All-America Team distinction by virtue of attaining the highest team GPA across all NCAA divisions (3.98). A few individuals also earned CSC Academic All-District honors, and sophomore Jana Woo was named Caltech Athlete of the Year for her incredible season on the diving boards.
The Beavers began making history in their very first meet of the season, a tri-meet with Pomona-Pitzer and host Cal Baptist, as first-year Cherise Wong (Millbrae, Calif. / The Nueva School) posted a 1:10.86 finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, the seventh-fastest time in Caltech history. At the same meet, classmate Beatrice Cai (Princeton, N.J. / Princeton HS) swam a 10th-best 200-yard backstroke at 2:15.43. Fellow first-year Karen Zhou (Trophy Club, Tex. / Byron Nelson) also made her mark in the 200-yard butterfly program records with a ninth-best 2:17.88 time, a sign of things to come in Caltech's bright future.
About a month later at the two-day, four-team Caltech Invite meet, Jana Woo recorded the team's highest-ever score in an 11-dive program off the 3-meter board, scoring a jaw-dropping 514.40 points. Woo currently holds both record scores for diving, having set the program 1-meter record of 470.50 at the 2022 Oxy Invite. Through the rest of the meet, the Beavers set 13 new top-10 marks, with Elizabeth Won (Hong Kong / Hong Kong International School) claiming the No. 3 spot in the 500-yard freestyle, Cai taking fourth all-time in the 200-yard individual medley (IM) with Allison Xin (Broomfield, Colo. / Stargate Charter) just over a second behind her in the no. 7 spot. Xin also took eighth all-time in the 100 fly and ninth in 200 backstroke, and Grace Davis (Elkton, S.D. / Brookings) put up a third-best time in the 200 breaststroke and 10th-fastest in the 200 IM as well. Finally, the meet saw four new relay top-10s as Xin, Davis, Cai and Isabel Xu (East Setauket, N.Y. / Ward Melville) claimed No. 5 all-time in the 400-yard medley relay (4:02.19), and the four of them combined for three more relay top-10s by the end of the meet.
The Beavers' dual meet victories came against SCIAC rivals Occidental in Caltech's first home meet, a tri-meet with Biola University also competing. Caltech then trounced Redlands at their own meet on Jan. 6, followed by a Senior Day triumph over Whittier College. Caltech wrapped up the regular season with a 180-72 rout of La Verne before the four-day SCIAC Championships meet at the end of February.
Davis set a new program record in the 100-yard breaststroke in her preliminary heat at the conference meet, finishing in 1:07.56. She then broke her own record later that day, touching the wall after 1:07.47 in the final.
Woo made history with her first-place score in the 3-meter dive event, claiming the Beavers' sole individual championship of the meet and finishing more than 23 points higher than the runner-up.
In their last chance of the year, more Beavers set program top-10s as Karen Zhou claimed the fourth-best finish in the 200 breaststroke (2:30.82); her finish in the 100 breast on Senior Day ranks sixth all-time for Caltech. She also claimed the second-fastest 400 IM finish in program history at 4:42.61, as well as the no. 6 spot in the 200 IM with a 2:12.94 time.
Paulina Naydenkov (Santa Barbara, Calif. / Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science) showcased her speed and endurance with a pair of individual top-10s, taking no. 10 in the 500-yard freestyle in 5:30.50, and seventh in the 1650 at 19:45.53.
And finally, seven relay top-10s were achieved in the conference championships, the highest-ranking one coming in the 200-yard medley relay, as Natalie Lee (Westfield, N.J. / Union County Magnet), Davis, Cai and Xu combined for a second-best 1:48.50 finish. Lee, Davis, Cai and Emily Yu
(Toronto, Can. / University of Toronto Schools) also picked up the third-best Caltech time in the 400-yard medley relay with a 3:59.00 finish. In the freestyle relays, Xu, Emily Yu, Lee and Xin claimed the no. 3 time at 1:39.23, as teammates Zhou, Won, Brea Swartwood (Mililani, Hawaii / Mililani) and Naydenkov took the no. 9 spot. Cai, Zhou, Won and Yu finished the 800 in 8:01.09 for fourth all-time, and Xu, Cai, Lee and Yu took fifth all-time in the 400 with a 3:37.67 finish.
Woo was Caltech's sole representative at the NCAA regional championships, taking 11th place out of 28 1-meter divers and then seventh out of 22 off the 3-meter board.
While the dedication and contributions of seniors Swartwood and Katy Chu (Los Gatos, Calif. / Saint Francis) will be missed, the outstanding results produced by the younger teammates and a promising class of new recruits promise more wins, records and history to be made in the 2024-25 swim & dive season.
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