Austin, Texas-native Emma Wheal has added her name to the impressive list of swimmers and divers who have verbally committed to the University of Virginia class of 2023: Caroline Kulp, Charlotte Bowen, Ella Collins, Ella Nelson, Jennifer Bell, Kate Douglass, Katie Cronin, Lexi Cuomo, and Maddie Donohoe.
“As soon as I stepped on the UVA grounds and met the coaching staff I knew it was the place for me. The sprint focused team and academics are amazing, and the team vibe was great. I can’t wait to be a wahoo!”
Wheal is a junior at Westlake High School where she specializes in sprint freestyle. A NISCA All-American, she was runner-up in the 50 free (23.11) and third in the 100 free (50.65) at the 2018 Texas UIL 6A Swimming & Diving State Meet. She led off Austin Westlake’s state-champion 200 free relay and anchored the second-place 200 medley relay (22.66). Her lifetime bests in the 50/100 free come from her sophomore year high school season.
Wheal swims year-round for Western Hills Athletic Club. She had some outstanding performances at College Station Sectionals in March, going best SCY times in the 200 free and 100 fly and finaling in all her events: 50 free (5th), 100 free (9th), 200 free (34th), 100 back (21st), and 100 fly (10th). Last year she competed in the 50/100m free and 100m fly at Summer Junior Nationals.
Top SCY times:
- 50 free – 22.62
- 100 free – 49.81
- 200 free – 1:51.11
- 50 fly – 26.68
- 100 fly – 54.16
- 50 back – 26.47
- 100 back – 56.74
Fun trivia fact: Wheal’s father, Jamie, founded The Flow Genome Project.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
Can anyone explain how UVA has acquired so many commits for the class of 2019? Promises of scholarship money if you make NCAA cuts.can’t be fooling these swimmers or their parents can it? If more rather than less of them make cuts then there will be some pretty upset swimmers/parents when they find out there is not enough to go around sophomore year.
Congrats to Emma, but to say UVA is “sprint focused” is a narrow assumption.
wow, ten people already in this class, scholarship dollars gotta be stretched really thin
For the in state commits at least, UVA isn’t a very expensive school
Cost of attendance is still 32k a year for in-state. That’s still a sizable chunk of change.
Yes, but it’s all relative. If you look at elite private schools in the SouthEast like Duke, Vandy, Wake Forest — they run about $65-70K . . .
UVA crushing it!