The Trojan men’s and women’s swim and dive teams are facing down the 2025-26 season with farewells made, fresh faces present and a supporting staff ready to meet the athletes where they’re at. 

After compiling a 3-2 record in dual meets, the men’s team ended last season with a 15th-place finish at the NCAA Championships in March, its best finish at the meet since 2018. This placement came in no small part thanks to then-senior Chris O’Grady rewriting his own school record twice in one day across prelims and consolations, becoming the first-ever Trojan to go sub-1:51:00 in the 200-yard breaststroke. 

Though the Trojans will feel O’Grady’s loss, junior Krzysztof Chmielewski is a strong contender to step up as a team leader this season. The flyer shaved a second and a half off of his 200-yard butterfly time at NCAAs in spite of an official-induced re-swim, setting a school record at 1:39.09. Chmielewski also recently took home silver in the 200-meter fly at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in late July.

The women’s team ended on a 3-2 record for the 2024-25 season, putting its killer recruiting class to work for an 11th-place finish at the NCAA Championships. While the meet marked the last collegiate performance from Kaitlyn Dobler, a United States National Team member and four-time College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association All-American, it also highlighted current-junior Minna Abraham’s powerhouse performance in the 100-yard freestyle. 

The freestyler reset the school’s record for the 100-yard free and earned First Team All-American honors after becoming the first Trojan to hit under 47 seconds in the event. A rising star among the Trojans, Abraham stood alongside the likes of JuJu Watkins and Mia Tuaniga for Female Athlete of the Year at the 2024-25 Tommy Awards last spring. 

“[Abraham] is just a gamer … She wants that ‘W.’ We want to give her that. We want her to have her moment,” said Head Coach Lea Maurer in an interview with the Daily Trojan. 

Along with Chmielewski, Abraham was one of four Trojans who not only competed in the World Championships in July but were also selected by the Big Ten as Swimmers and Divers to Watch and competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics for four different nations. 

“[Chmielewski and Abraham] came here to win. They came here to make the Olympic team and be on the podium,” Maurer said. “They make us better every day, and they set the gold standard. So, these individuals are helping us all get better, but they also just bring a level of happiness to hard work, which is really the secret sauce.”

Graduate Moritz Wesemann and sophomore Kate Miller represented the divers at the Olympics, with Wesemann also taking the Big Ten 3-meter diving title last season and Miller earning eighth in the 10-meter synchronized event during World Championships. 

The women’s diving team is keeping its ranks steady at five athletes after losing graduate Maddie Huitt, senior Grace Lee and freshman Gabby Filzen. However, the team has gained freshman Morgan Burns along with two experienced recruits, sophomore Virginia transfer Alena Lotterer and graduate San Jose State University transfer Jenna Jagielski. 

Though the transfers will have less time to settle in than an incoming freshman recruit, last year’s class of strong incoming freshmen will keep the Trojans’ momentum and longevity until the second years’ graduation. 

As for the men’s diving team, the group lost senior Shangfei Wang to graduation but picked up two freshmen recruits, Luc Goertzen and Valentino Nieto, raising the number to five for this season. While the increase promises a steadier environment for the newest Trojans, the other divers are all either seniors or graduate students, placing pressure on the freshmen to improve quickly this season as they face being the sole returners next year.

Although the pressure is on for the sophomores on the women’s team and the new recruits on the men’s, both teams will have a fresh source of wisdom from new Assistant Diving Coach and USC diving alum Kim Popp. The former dive team captain has been coaching for the Trojan Dive Club since her time as a walk-on student-athlete starting in 2005, where she was mainly a platform diver and made it to the NCAA Diving Championships by 2006. 

The Trojans are also covering their bases with recruits across the spectrum of strokes and events in freshmen recruitment alone. The men’s team has welcomed five new freshmen, while the women’s team has added seven, all of whom represent at least one of the four strokes and two IMers. 

Nevertheless, Maurer identified graduate Vaggelis Makrygiannis as a rising team leader in boosting morale, having taken the 2024-25 season off and come back with more gusto than ever.

“[Makrygiannis] took some time off for the Olympics, and he came back,” Maurer said. “He’s someone who, in the little pause, has come back with a renewed enthusiasm for the ‘fight-on’ spirit. … He’s just been an incredible leader, and he’s got a really great sense of humor, and even some of his foibles from the past, he can laugh at.”

With a powerful set of fresh faces and several returning Trojans rising into their roles as team leaders, the 2025-26 season for the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams looks optimistic. Trojans new and old will make their first splash Oct. 10-11 at the USC Invitational at Uytengsu Aquatics Center against Texas A&M, Indiana and UCLA. 

“We are a cake in the oven, so I’m really trying to not focus on what it’s going to look like as the final product,” Maurer said. “We have a lot of potential. We’re going to have some people have some big breakthroughs and level up a bit.”