Three GW swimmers competed at the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, with redshirt senior Djurdje Matic placing 14th in the 100-yard butterfly finals Friday.
Earlier in the day, Matic broke the Atlantic 10 record in the preliminary round, swimming a 44.80 in the 100-yard butterfly. This placed him in a three-way tie for 10th and secured him a place in the consolation finals. A week prior to the men’s championships, junior Ava DeAngelis and sophomore Ava Topolewski competed at the NCAA women’s championship in the 200-yard breaststroke and 1,650-yard freestyle, respectively.
Topolewski holds the conference record in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 16:08.48. She swam a 16:22:75 at the national championships. DeAngelis finished 45th in the nation in the 200-yard breaststroke, swimming nearly two seconds off her previous season best. Topolewski finished 39th in the 1,650-yard freestyle.
Matic’s top-16 finish earns him All-American status, the first time he’s received the honor. He said he hopes to secure a qualifying time for the 2024 Paris Olympics to represent his home country of Serbia.
“We have to get qualifying times that are written down by the International Olympic Committee,” Matic said in an interview following his A-10 win. “So I have until the 23rd of June to get the cut-off for the 100 Fly. And our goal is to try and prepare for Europeans that are going to be in late June in Belgrade. So after NCAAs, that’s our goal and our target for the rest of the season.”
At the NCAA championships, Matic improved upon his time from the A-10 Championships in the 50-yard freestyle, swimming 19.42, which was good for 34th in the nation.
Topolewski was scheduled to swim the 200-yard butterfly but scratched the event. Matic also scratched from the 100-yard freestyle, concluding his time as a Revolutionary.
Next season, the squad will look to continue their dominance of the A-10, where both the men’s and women’s teams won the A-10 Championship for the third year in a row, setting 17 new conference records in the process.
