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The Harvard women, based on verbal commitments, have brought in arguably the best class in program history after two new additions. Willa Wang and Canadian Victoria Chan have both pledged to the Crimson, giving them two of the biggest recruits left on the board (ranked #13 and #28 by CollegeSwimming.com).
Wang comes to Boston from NBAC, and in true North Baltimore fashion is an elite IM’er. In yards, she’s been 2:00.21 and 4:12.05 in yards, respectively. Both times would’ve made her the second-fastest in the Ivy League last season, and put her in line to be an NCAA qualifier as a freshman.
She is also an impressive distance freestyler, having been 1:48-mid in the 200, 4:44 in the 500, and 16:22 in the mile. Her 500 freestyle would have been the best time in the Ivy League last year. She’ll find a perfect training partner next season in sophomore Courtney Otto. Otto had a big freshman year, finishing 2nd in the conference in the 500 free and 1st in the 400 IM, and also made the semi-finals of the 200 fly at the Olympic Trials. Kelsey Hojan Clark, who is also a sophomore this season, was 3rd in the Ivy’s last year in the 500 as well.
They’ve also added Victoria Chan from the Richmond Hill Aquatic Club in Canada. Chan is one of the best sprint recruits in this class, having been a 25.81 in the 50 free in long course and a 56.28 in the 100 free. Those convert to sub-23 and sub-50 in yards: certainly enough to make an immediate relay impact in a big way.
Her 2:01.55 long course in the 200 free would do the same, as would Wang’s 1:48-mid in yards; however, the Crimson really need Chan’s impact on the sprint relays. Whereas they dominated the 800 free relay at Ivy’s last year, they were beaten pretty badly in all four of the shorter relays, taking no higher than 3rd in any of them. When Chan comes on board, however, combined with some good young sprint talent from the likes of Faith Martin and Sarah Summers (both sophomores), that could change in a hurry.
The defending league champions are quickly becoming the class of the Ivy’s, and are beginning to pick up the kind of recruits that will push them into the national scene: something that everyone has been waiting for one of these highly-academic schools to do for years. This is the second-straight big recruiting class that they’ve had.
Other names joining next the fall include:
- Summer Schmitt, a 55.2 100 butterflier
- Ashlee Korsberg, a 4:52 500 freestyler
- Daniela Johnson, a 51.0 100 freestyler
- Marisa Cominelli, a 54.7 100 backstroker
- Margaret Chory, a 2:01.5 200 backstroker (coached by Russ Bernal – former coach of David Berkoff, Olympic gold medalist and Harvard backstroker)
All 6 of these swimmers should have an immediate, and significant, impact on at least the conference championship level.