Transfers and Graduates Impact Florida Women’s College Team in 2026

By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam

It’s that time of the year again. SwimSwam will be previewing the top 12 men’s and women’s teams (and then some) from the 2025 NCAA Championships. Follow along with the College Swimming Preview Channel. Want to read even more? Check out the latest edition of the SwimSwam magazine.

Women’s #6: Florida Gators

Key Losses: Bella Sims (34 NCAA Points, 4 NCAA Relays), Emma Weyant (19 NCAA Points, 1 NCAA Relay), Mabel Zavaros (17 NCAA Points), Olivia Peoples (11 NCAA Points, 3 NCAA Relays), Micayla Cronk (4 NCAA Relays)

Key Additions: #6 Grace Rabb (TX – back/IM) #9 Lilla Bognar (SC – IM/back), HM Lynsey Bowen (IN – free), BOTR Zuri Ferguson (MA – back), Maria Fernanda Garcia (Mexico – diver), Alexa Fung (Canada – diver), Beatriz Bezerra (Brazil — fly/free), Sylvia Statkevicius (Lithuania — free)

GRADING CRITERIA

Over the years, we’ve gone back and forth on how to project points, ranging from largely subjective rankings to more data-based grading criteria based on ‘projected returning points.’ We like being as objective as possible, but we’re going to stick with the approach we’ve adopted post-COVID. The “stars” will rely heavily on what swimmers actually did last year, but we’ll also give credit to returning swimmers or freshmen who have posted times that would have scored last year.

Since we only profile the top 12 teams in this format, our grades are designed with that range in mind. In the grand scheme of college swimming and compared to all other college programs, top 12 NCAA programs would pretty much all grade well across the board. But in the interest of making these previews informative, our grading scale is tough – designed to show the tiers between the good stroke groups, the great ones, and the 2015 Texas fly group types.

• 5 star (★★★★★) – a rare, elite NCAA group projected to score 25+ points per event
• 4 star (★★★★) – a very, very good NCAA group projected to score 15-24 points per event
• 3 star (★★★) – a good NCAA group projected to score 5-14 points per event
• 2 star (★★) – a solid NCAA group projected to score 1-4 points per event
• 1 star (★) –  an NCAA group that is projected to score no points per event, though that doesn’t mean it’s without potential scorers – they’ll just need to leapfrog some swimmers ahead of them to do it

We’ll grade each event discipline: sprint free (which we define to include all the relay-distance freestyle events, so 50, 100 and 200), distance free, IM, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and diving. Use these grades as a jumping-off point for discussion, rather than a reason to be angry.

Also, keep in mind that we are publishing many of these previews before teams have posted finalized rosters. We’re making our assessments based on the best information we have available at the time of publication, but we reserve the right to make changes after publication based on any new information that may emerge regarding rosters. If that does happen, we’ll make certain to note the change

2024-25 Season Review

The Gators dropped in the SEC and NCAA standings last season, though their drop at the conference championships was a result of Texas joining the SEC.

Florida finished 6th at the 2025 NCAA Championships with 232 points thanks to an exceptional performance from Bella Sims and double-digit points from Emma Weyant, Mabel Zavaros, Julie Brousseau, and Olivia Peoples.

Sims brought in two second-place finishes in the backstroke events to rack up 34 points in her sophomore season for the Gators. This was slightly off the 56 points she brought in the year before, but she still scored 15 more points than anyone else on the roster.

Senior Weyant brought in 19 points with her 2nd-place finish in the 400 IM and 15th-place finish in the 1650 free. She was joined in the double-digit point club by fifth-year Mabel Zavaros, who scored 17 points with her 13th-place finish in the 500 free and her 6th-place finish in the 400 IM.

Julie Brousseau, a freshman, and Olivia Peoples, another senior, also brought in more than 10 points at 12 and 11, respectively. Brousseau was the only Florida swimmer to score in all three of her events, finishing 10th in the 500 free, 13th in the 400 IM, and 16th in the 1650 free. Peoples, on the other hand, only scored in one, but she brought in 11 points with her 8th place finish in the 100 fly.

They also saw points come in from freshman Anita Bottazzo (9), sophomore Catie Choate (7), sophomore Michaela Mattes (6), freshman Addison Reese (4), and sophomore Lainy Kruger (3).

The Gators also had some very strong relay performances, finishing top three in the 800 freestyle and 400 medley relays and top 10 in the 400 free and 200 medley. The only relay they didn’t score any points in was the 200 freestyle relay, which they have historically struggled with. They had a stronger showing at the SEC Championships, scoring 1,179 points to finish just nine points ahead of Tennessee, which went on to outscore them by more than 60 points at NCAAs.

Sims and Weyant were at the top of the point leaderboard at the SEC Championships as well, scoring 91 and 82 points, respectively, but they were joined by more than 80 points by sophomore diver Camyla Monroy, who scored 80 points in the diving events.

Sprint Freestyle: ★

Florida has historically struggled in the sprint freestyle events. They did not have a single athlete in the 50 or 100 freestyle events at the 2025 NCAA Championships, and the 200 freestyle relay was the only relay in which they did not score points.

Their fastest 50 and 100 freestyler from last season was Bella Sims, and she transferred to Michigan, leaving Addison Reese as the fastest returning sprinter at 22.39 and 48.48, respectively. Neither of these swims is under the NCAA cutline, and Reese focuses on the butterfly events, and would need to see significant drops to score points.

They picked up two international sprint freshmen in Beatriz Bezerra and Sylvia Statkevicius. Bezerra’s LC times convert to 22.26 and 49.21, and Statkevicius comes in slightly slower in the 50 at 22.53, but faster in the 100 at 48.69. None of these swims are under the cutlines of 22.01 and 48.11, but they will be helpful on the sprint relays. Statkevicius also has a 200 freestyle time that converts to 1:45.20, which is about half a second over the 1:44.74 cutline.

The 200 free is the only place they are returning any NCAA scorers from last season, with current junior Lainy Kruger bringing in three points at the 2025 NCAA Championships with her 14th-place finish in the 200. They also have Julie Brousseau, who scored 12 points at NCAAs, coming in under the cutline with her 1:44.18. She did not swim the event last season, competing in the 400 IM instead, where she finished 13th. It seems likely she will make this decision again, but if she chooses to swim the 200, she could be a ‘B’ finalist.

JoJo Ramey also swam the 200 freestyle at NCAAs, finishing 49th in 1:48.05, but her lifetime best in the event would have been 20th. While this is still outside of scoring position, a half-second drop could get her in the ‘B’ final.

Incoming freshman Lynsey Bowen will be another potential swimmer in the 200 freestyle with her best time sitting at 1:45.30, about half a second over the cutline. She hasn’t dropped in the event since 2022, though, and would need a very strong swim to find herself in scoring position.

Distance Freestyle: ★★★

This group received five stars last season, and even though Bella Sims and Emma Weyant will not be returning, the group is still one of their strongest.

Brousseau was their highest finishing swimmer in the 500 last season, touching 10th at the NCAA Championships, and she will be back in the event this year along with Michaela Mattes, who was 45th.

Bowen has a best time of 4:39.51 in the event, which would be just a tenth back of the NCAA cutline in the event, but again, she hasn’t dropped in the event since December of 2023, and she would need to get a full second faster if she wants to beat the 16th-place time from the prelims of 4:38.76.

In the 1650, they have Mattes and Brousseau both returning as NCAA scorers, having finished 11th and 16th last season, respectively, in the event to total seven points for the Gators.

Backstroke: ★★

The Gators saw Bella Sims score 34 points in the backstroke events last season with her 2nd place finish in both the 100 and 200, and they will be hurting with her transfer. They did pick up a few strong freshmen, and they have some of their top backstrokers returning.

Catie Choate is their top returning backstroker, having scored seven points with her 10th-place finish in the 200 backstroke. She did not score in the 100 backstroke, finishing 24th overall, and her best time of 51.54 would still have sat just outside of scoring position at 22nd. She sits just three tenths out of scoring position with 16th place in prelims coming in at 51.20.

Zoe Dixon and JoJo Ramey also swam the 200 backstroke at NCAAs, finishing 26th and 29th, respectively. Both added from their lifetime bests in the event, but their best times would have still been outside scoring position, with Ramey coming the closest with her 1:52.02, which would have been 17th.

Incoming freshman Grace Rabb was their highest-ranked recruit and will bolster the backstroke group as well with her time of 1:52.13, placing her just outside of NCAA scoring in the event. Her 100 backstroke of 52.09 is just over the NCAA cutline of 51.68, but a four-tenth drop isn’t unheard of for a college freshman.

Also joining the backstroke group are Zuri Ferguson, who has times of 52.65 and 1:53.31, and Lilla Bognar, who has been 53.28 and 1:53.29. Ferguson’s 200 backstroke time exactly ties the NCAA cutline in the event, and would make her the potential fifth Gator in the event at this season’s NCAAs. Bognar is not quite as fast in the 100, but her 200 backstroke comes in under the NCAA cutline, and will likely be one of her three events. However, Bognar has not swum a meet in 2025, so we don’t know where her times will be.

Breaststroke: ★★★

Anita Bottazzo was the top breaststroker for the Gators last year, with her best time of 57.49 in the 100 breast ranking her 6th in the NCAA last season. She ended up finishing 9th at the 2025 NCAA Championships after she swam 58.44 in the prelims. Her time in the ‘B’ final (57.84) would have been 4th overall and scored 15 points for the team.

Bottazzo also swam the 200 breast, finishing 20th in prelims. Her best time of 2:08.66 would have been one spot out of finals position at 17th overall, just a tenth behind Letitia Sim’s 2:08.56.

She will be joined by Molly Mayne, who was 37th in the 100 breaststroke and scratched out of the 200 breaststroke after being seeded 25th overall. Her best time in the 200 of 2:08.50 would have been 15th in prelims and finals of the event, scoring two points.

Sofia Plaza was another 200 breaststroker, finishing 41st at the 2025 NCAAs in 2:11.64. Her lifetime best in the event of 2:10.17 was about half a second over the NCAA cutline, but she qualified in the 400 IM.

Butterfly: ★★

Florida graduated their top butterfly swimmer, Olivia Peoples, last season after she scored 11 points in the 100 with her 8th place finish at NCAAs. They will return Addison Reese, who brought in four points with her 13th-place finish in the 200 fly. Reese also finished 39th in the 100 fly at 52.30, just a hundredth off the 52.29 mark she set at the SEC Championships.

Lainy Kruger is another potential finalist in the 200 fly after she finished 24th last year. It took 1:54.16 in prelims to qualify for the final, which is about a second faster than Kruger’s best of 1:55.08.

Incoming freshman Beatriz Bezerra will also make an impact in the fly events. Her 100 fly time of 58.99 converts to 52.80, which would have been 3rd on the team last season, behind Reese and Peoples. It is about a second over the NCAA cutline of 51.87, but she will likely be a conference scorer.

Reese is their only seeded scorer at the moment. Kruger or Bezerra could find their way into potential ‘B’ finals swims, but they would need to drop some significant time.

IM: ★★★½

Florida has a deep medley group, and despite losing their top IMer in Emma Weyant, they will still have a significant number of swimmers in the IM events. At last season’s NCAAs, they had six athletes in the 400 IM and four in the 200 IM.

Brousseau will, yet again, be a major swimmer for the Gators, especially in the 400 IM, where she is their top returning swimmer after she finished 13th in the 400 IM at NCAAs. She is a potential ‘A’ finalist in the event, after she was slightly off at the NCAA Championships.

She touched in 4:05.83 in the final to come in just behind Princeton’s Eleanor Sun, but her lifetime best stands at 4:04.21, which she swam to finish 5th at SECs. That time would have qualified her 7th for the final, where she would have finished 8th, bringing in 11 points.

Brousseau will probably not swim the 200 IM as she is a ‘B’ finalist in the 500 freestyle, and she does not have a SCY time in the event since she never swam it last season.

Zoe Dixon was actually one of the fastest IMers on the Florida team last year, but she struggled last season. At the 2024 NCAA Championships, she finished 8th in the 200 IM and 7th in the 400 IM. At the 2025 NCAA Championships, she finished 17th in the 200 IM, touching in 1:55.59 to add about two seconds from her best of 1:53.73, and 20th in the 400 IM, swimming 4:08.59 to add five seconds from her lifetime best of 4:03.33. If she is able to get back down to her swims from 2024 this year, she is a potential ‘A’ finalist in both events.

Sofia Plaza and Michaela Mattes also swam the 400 IM at the NCAA Championships, finishing 24th and 40th, respectively. Plaza’s lifetime best of 4:07.23 would have qualified for the ‘B’ final in 16th overall, and makes her a potential scorer if she is able to replicate that swim.

Lainy Kruger and Molly Mayne were both entered in the 200 IM. Kruger finished 23rd in 1:56.13, a two-second add from the 1:54.08 mark she set at the SEC Championships, which would make her a ‘B’ finalist. Mayne no-showed the event, but her lifetime best of 1:57.69 would not have earned a finals swim.

The Gators are also bringing in freshmen IMers in the form of Grace Rabb and Lilla Bognar to each take one of the IMs. Rabb is coming in at 1:55.64 in the 200 IM, which would have been 18th in prelims at NCAAs, and Bognar’s time of 4:05.50 from 2022 would have comfortably made the ‘B’ final.

The IM group is deep, but it isn’t exceptionally fast, with only one athlete who scored last year returning. They have the potential to score a lot of points, though, if the athletes are in top form.

Diving: ★★★

The diving events are where Florida has the most potential for improvement. Last year, the Gators scored zero points at the NCAA Championships, despite their third-highest point scorer from SECs being a diver.

Camyla Monroy scored 80 points after winning the 1-meter and placing 6th on the 3-meter and platform. In 2024, she finished 7th on the 1-meter springboard, and clearly maintained that skill with her win at SECs last season. If she is able to perform at NCAAs, she is a potential three-event scorer. Last season, she narrowly missed out on platform (17th) and the 1-meter event (19th).

They are also bringing in three freshmen divers, including Alexa Fung and Maria Fernanda Garcia. Both athletes have international experience, with Fung winning the gold medal in the 1-meter springboard event in 2022 and Fernanda Garcia finishing 12th in the 3-meter and 15th in the 1-meter at the World Championships in Singapore. Both women could come in as NCAA point scorers.

Relays: ★★★

Relays are one of the places where Florida will struggle the most with the loss of Bella Sims. The only relay she did not swim on last year finished 23rd and brought in zero points for the team. Their freshmen will help some, but it is nearly impossible to replace Sims.

They are also having to replace four-relay swimmer Micayla Cronk, who graduated after last season, and was a cornerstone of the Gators’ relays.

Here is how the relays looked last year:

All the Florida relays are losing at least one athlete, though in many cases, there are swimmers coming up who are able to fill empty spaces. Addison Reese only swam two relays at last year’s NCAA Championships, but she will likely be on four this year, swimming the freestyle leg on both medleys as well as on both freestyle relays. Bezerra and Statkevicius are both coming in as well, with times that convert to faster than or right around the splits from last year’s 200 free relay.

The 800 freestyle relay will also probably be okay, though they will struggle to replace Sims’ 1:42.55 from a flat start to lead off the relay. They could still end up in the top 10 with Bognar, Statkevicius, and Bowen all having times in the 1:45 to 1:46 range—though they’ll all need to step up and split sub-1:45.

Bezerra and Statkevicius could both swim on four relays as freshmen, with Bezerra taking over fly legs on the medley and Statkevicius swimming the 200 free, 400 free, and 800 free relays at a minimum.

The medleys are where the Gators will see the most turnover, with three of the four athletes on both relays not returning this year. Rabb and Ferguson are both potential options to take over the backstroke legs, with Ferguson being slightly more likely on the 200 medley and Rabb more likely on the 400 medley. Neither will be able to match Sims’ splits, but they have slightly more help on the back ends.

The freestyle and butterfly legs will be split in some combination between Bezerra, Reese, and Statkevicius, with Bezerra and Reese seeming as the likely fly/free combination right now. Micayla Cronk split 47.63 to come home on the 400 medley last year, with Peoples splitting 50.65 on the fly leg. Reese was 48.61 on the 400 free relay, but her best time of 48.48 from a flat start lends to the idea that she can be faster there. Bezerra comes in with a conversion more than two seconds back of Peoples in 52.80. While they probably won’t finish in the top 3 again, they have five seconds of cushion to remain in the top 10.

The Gators will have a hard time finishing in the top three, like they did twice last year, but they have the potential to still end up in the top 10 for most of the relays.

Total Stars: 20.5/40

2025/26 Outlook

The Florida women are in a tough spot this year, though a very strong recruiting class and some talented returning swimmers will help them as they try to maintain their spot in the NCAA’s top 10 (despite being just two years removed from placed 3rd in 2024).

Returners like Addison Reese, Lainy Kruger, and Julie Brousseau will be crucial in scoring points for the Gators, while the freshmen will come in with major relay duties from the outset. The divers will also need to be exceptional and bring in a significant number of points.

Bella Sims is an incredibly talented swimmer and a very difficult one to try to replace, especially with her wide-ranging abilities and ability to contribute in so many areas. There isn’t one individual swimmer who can take over her duties or make up for the loss of her points, but multiple swimmers could step up to the plate and take pieces.

As far as the SEC goes, the Gators were 2nd last year in a very close race with Tennessee, coming out on top by just nine points. The top three teams were far ahead of the rest of the conference, but Tennessee could overtake them this year, depending on both teams and their freshmen contingents.

WOMEN’S 2025-26 COLLEGE PREVIEW INDEX

Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2026 College Previews: #6 Florida Women Hit Hard By Transfers and Graduates