A legacy of dominance continues.
On March 6, the NCAA announced the qualifiers for the 2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, and two familiar names made the list. Junior freestyle/individual medley specialist Anna Moehn and junior freestyle specialist Sydney Bergstrom are set to make a splash at the championships in the 1650-yard freestyle held at Washington State University in Federal Way, W.A.
Moehn qualifies for NCAAs for the second-straight season while Bergstrom is making her debut on the national stage. Both continue the legacy of Red and Blue freestyle swimmers who have competed at NCAAs — including recent graduates Anna Kalandadze and Catherine Buroker and Red and Blue swimming legends like Shelby Fortin and Virginia Burns.
“[Continuing the legacy] is such an honor,” Moehn said, “It goes back so much further than Cathy … [to swimmers] before my time all the people that [coach Mike Schnur] has told us the tall tales of. Being able to contribute to that legacy means the world.”
The qualification process for individual events for NCAA championships is two parts. Every year, 322 women’s swimmers can compete at NCAA championships. Swimmers who hit NCAA A cut time standards in their events automatically qualify; however, not all spots are taken up by automatic qualifiers as the time standard is competitive. After swimmers with NCAA A cuts are tallied, the spots remaining go to swimmers who have the next fastest B-cut time until the meet is full.
At the 2025 Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, Moehn and Bergstrom finished second and third respectively in the 1650-yard freestyle and in times of 16:04.71 and 16:07.96 respectively — two fast enough B-cuts that resulted in their qualification to NCAAs.
Last year, Moehn competed at NCAAs for the first time in the 1650-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle events alongside Kalandadze, who supported Moehn through her NCAA debut. This year, Moehn notably now fulfills the mentorship role with Bergstrom who is competing in her first NCAAs — someone who Moehn started her Quaker career with.
“So excited for Sydney … To be able to do this together, it was so awesome,” Moehn said, “I owe so much of what I've been able to accomplish to her. She is such an amazing training partner, and so is the rest of the team … I'm so excited to show her the ropes,”
“[Moehn] has been great and such a great person to rely on," Bergstrom said, "I'm so happy I'm not gonna have to stay [in Philadelphia training] alone, and I'm also so happy that I'm able to be there for her."
Another swimmer has been a huge support this year and last year, even though she did not compete on the national stage with either Moehn or Bergstrom.
“[Buroker] came back to give the awards for the mile at [the recent] Ivies … It was really nice to see a familiar face right before,” Bergstrom said, “She also texted me and Anna, like before Ivies last year, wishing us good luck, and has always been really supportive of both of us … because she knows that [NCAAs] is ultimately the goal.”
The duo will spend the next two weeks training and then resting for the quickly approaching championships set to begin on March 19.
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