ACC Squads Virginia, UNC, Florida State Add to Classes

The Virginia Cavaliers and Florida State Seminoles have both added verbal commitments to their classes as the women continue to dominate the headlines this fall.

Virginia, who already have a great class of recruits coming in, have hopped across the pond to earn a verbal commitment from Great Britain’s Ellen Thomas. She’s a great sprint freestyler and butterflier, with long course bests of 57.2 in the 100 free and 1:02.2 in the 100 fly. Though to this point of her career she’s been better in long course than short course, that converts to roughly a 55.4 in yards.

The Cavaliers’ arch-rivals at North Carolina have also added two very good swimmers to their class this week. The first, Hellen Moffit, was sniped from the state of Virginia: specifically Alexandria and Machine Aquatics/West Potomac High School. There, under the watchful eyes of her coaches Dan Jacobs and Bob Lombardi, she’s developed into a tailor-made Rich Deselm recruit.

Moffit has bests of 55.7/55.0 in the 100 back and 100 fly, respectively, as well as a 1:59.0 in the 200 back. The North Carolina roster is littered with girls (and guys for that matter) who have had big success there swimming both backstroke and butterfly events, including Katie Nolan and Carly Smith. 

The Tar Heels have also earned a verbal commit from Caty Hulsey out of Georgia. The swimmer out of GCAT says she’s likely see a championships schedule of the 500 free (4:50.79), the 400 IM (4:18.63), and the 200 fly (2:01.42). Knowing that, and still deciding to commit to North Carolina with such a tough event schedule ahead of her, speaks a lot to her toughness. She is a club teammate of Tennessee commit Trisha Forrester.

Finally, the Florida State Seminoles have gotten their first two female recruits of the season. The bigger of the two is Lydia Ware from the YMCA of Florida’s First Coast in Jacksonville and Bishop Kenney High School. She’s a freestyle sprinter with yards bests of 23.48 and 51.09. One of the strengths of the Florida State program has been developing sprinters, so Ware should project to a successful career. If she develops well, she could be on some ACC relays as a freshman.

FSU also has a verbal commitment from Caroline Page out of the Greater Pensecola Aquatic Club, a 56.5 100 backstroker.

The Florida State men have generally hit the in-state recruiting harder than the women have (the men have 22 Florida kids, the women just 11), but this year it appears as though head coach Neal Harper is ramping-up his local recruiting efforts on both sides.