Northwestern women’s swim and dive set a new school record and took a series of promising steps forward at the 2026 NCAA Division I Championships in Atlanta. Six Northwestern swimmers participated in the four-day competition, and by the time the meet wrapped up on Saturday, Northwestern had earned eight team points and finished 33rd among more than 60 participating programs.
The trip did not come without its fair share of troubles as the team’s flight to Atlanta was cancelled due to the travel disruptions
from the government funding stalemate that has left TSA workers across the country without pay. More than a third of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport screeners did not show up to work on March 16, forcing the Wildcats to fly to Nashville and drive four hours to the meet on Wednesday.
After the hassle, sophomore Zoe Nordmann kicked it off for the team, stepping up to the block for the 1,650-yard freestyle that served as her first individual NCAA Championship appearance. Nordmann was familiar with the environment, having made the trip the year prior for NU’s 800-yard freestyle relay.
Nordmann touched the wall with a time of 16:10.05, good for 19th nationally. The mark was behind her personal best of 16:04.59, which was set at the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational last November and ranked 15th nationally heading into the championship. Still, a top-20 finish for her first individual event on the national stage is no small feat.
Two days later, Nordmann was back at it in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing 28th in the 54-swimmer field with a time of 4:41.76, just 0.65 seconds behind her 4:41.11 personal best, also set at the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational.
Seniors Lindsay Ervin, Ekaterina Nikonova, Audrey Yu and junior Amy Pan earned Northwestern’s only points of the week after a blistering for 1:27.86 in the 200-yard freestyle on Thursday, breaking a school record in the event and clocking a time eight-hundredths of a second faster than their previous season-best. The time was good enough to place them 13th nationally and earned eight points.
Sophomore Isabella Chen was Northwestern’s one and only platform diver, closing out the championship on Saturday with a score of 245.40 in prelims to finish 22nd. Despite not advancing to the final, it was a significant step forward from her freshman year when she placed 42nd. Chen qualified for the meet after putting together a top-10 performance of 478.95 at the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships earlier this month.
The big winner of the meet was once again Virginia, who captured their sixth straight championship with 589 points, beating out second-place Stanford by a margin of 208.5 points.
Rounding it out, the championship was a testament to the growth of a program that has not fully arrived just yet. Northwestern finished ninth in the Big Ten Championships for the second consecutive year, but did increase their point total from 409 in 2025 to 446 in 2026. The relay set a school record, Nordmann put together a solid performance through unideal circumstances and Chen showed real improvement from her first year.
In the fall, the program will add Flawia Kamzol, the No. 20 recruit in the Class of 2026, and Xintong Wang, ranked No. 97 nationally — both among the highest-rated recruits of the Rachel Stratton-Mills era. The foundation is in place, the Wildcats just need to keep building.
