Way Too Early Recruit Ranks: Girls High School Class of 2024

By Jared Anderson on SwimSwam

We continue our traditional spring recruiting coverage with our “Way Too Early” ranks of the current high school sophomore class. As top recruits continue to give verbal commitments earlier and earlier, we’re moving up our rankings to help give better context to big recruiting announcements.

Before we run over our traditional ranking methodology, we should head off a few counterarguments at the pass:

• Isn’t this too early to have a good read on talent? Aren’t 16-year-old kids still improving? Maybe. On the other hand, coaches are clearly finding roster spots for kids who verbally commit this early. And if we and our readership want to have the most accurate picture of how the recruiting season is playing out, it’ll be useful to have some sort of ranking – even one still very much in flux – to refer to as big-name swimmers commit.
• But recruiting ranks don’t matter. It’s the fast-dropping swimmers and diamonds in the rough that really have the biggest NCAA impact. Not true. There are always fast-rising swimmers who quickly develop into NCAA stars. But there are far less of them than there are elite high school prospects that become high-impact NCAA swimmers. We all love the Cinderella stories, the unranked recruits who flourish into dominators. But even those rags-to-riches stories aren’t as fleshed out if they don’t have a clearly-defined setup. These ranks help show us who is most likely to become NCAA standouts… but also contextualize where the eventual breakout stars originally rated compared to peers. If you, your favorite swimmer or your son/daughter isn’t ranked, don’t get mad – see it as the starting point for your/their rise to stardom.
• How accurate can these be with two-plus years of development to go before any of these swimmers compete in the NCAA? Who knows? Predicting the future never has a 100% hit rate. For these ranks, we’re a little less concerned with actual NCAA scoring times than we are in our junior/senior ranks, and probably marginally more interested in “ceilings” – wide event ranges, versatility, etc. But as with any ranking, these are ultimately nothing more than a snapshot in time: what the top of this recruiting class looks like in the moment, with full admission that a lot of these ranks can and will change by the time they finish their senior years.

THE METHODOLOGY

Our goal in these rankings is to reflect what college coaches look for in recruits, based on many years of conversations and coverage.

We focus only on American-based athletes, simply because there is so much uncertainty with international recruits – if they’ll come to the United States, when they’ll come to the States and with what graduating class they should be ranked. Projecting international recruits often becomes more of a discussion of when they’ll first join a college program and not which program they’ll join.

A few other factors that weigh heavily in our rankings:

• Relay Value – Relay points count double in college swimming, and any program needs a strong stable of quality sprinters to fill out all 5 relays with stars. Obviously, a special distance swimmer can easily rank ahead of a very good 100 freestyler, but college swimming generally values a sprint freestyler over a distance swimmer, all other factors being equal.
• Improvements – Actual times carry the most weight by a longshot. But we also keep an eye on a swimmer’s trajectory, especially in deciding between two swimmers with relatively even times.
• Short Course over Long Course – while every club and every swimmer will have a different balance of focus between short course and long course swimming, the NCAA competes in short course yards, and that’s going to be the main factor considered in these rankings. Long course times are another data point for consideration, but we mainly view them through the lens of what a big long course swim could mean for an athlete’s future in short course.
• NCAA scoring ability – NCAAs are the big show for college teams, so we’ve weighted NCAA scoring potential very highly. Swimmers who already have NCAA scoring times wind up mostly filling out the top our of rankings. Since college athletic directors – and by extension coaches – also place high value on conference championships, scoring ability at conference meets is also a factor in our rankings.
• Relative depth in the NCAA and recruiting class – a wealth of elite depth nationwide in one stroke discipline makes a big difference in what times are considered more valuable in that event. Events rise at different rates in the NCAA, but when one event gets extremely deep and fast at the college level, it makes high school prospects in those events a little less valuable, relatively, with lots of other veteran options. In the same way, a recruiting class stacked with swimmers in butterfly, for example, would make each butterflyer a little less sought-after in the market, with lots of other recruiting options able to provide similar production.

Of course, there’s no way to predict the future, and the most concrete data we have to go on are cold, hard times. These rankings in no way mean that all of these 20 swimmers will be NCAA standouts, and they certainly don’t mean that no swimmer left off this list will make big contributions at the NCAA level.

THIS CLASS

• Very deep sprint freestyle class with a ton of potential
• Great group of IMers, especially 400 IMers
• Thin in breaststroke and butterfly
• Great top-end distance talent, but not as much depth
• Strong 100 back class, still growing into 200 back

Since we started ranking sophomore classes in 2018, the #1 recruit on the women’s side has already been a household name among swimming fans. This year will be no different with breakout 2021 Olympian Katie Grimes joining Regan Smith (2020), Gretchen Walsh (2021), Claire Curzan (2022), and Bella Sims (2023) as the top recruit among sophomores. She leads a class that is really strong in top-end distance talent, but also very stratified: the depth drops off in a hurry.

This class is much more sprint-oriented at this point. There’s a mass of 22/49 types, so many of them that we couldn’t even fit them all into our “best of the rest” section. Expect a lot of shuffling within that group as the breakout stars start to distinguish themselves over their last two years of high school.

There’s a strong group of backstrokers at the top, and as in freestyle, we’re seeing a lot more speed than endurance right now. Most of the top backstrokers specialize in the 100 and are still developing their 200 times.

Ironically enough, it’s the exact opposite in the IMs, where the 400 IM times tend to stand out more than the 200 IMs across the board – that applies to both the top-end swimmers and the depth of the class.

If you’re looking for an immediate-impact breaststroker or butterflyer, this probably isn’t the best class for it yet. There are a few really good prospects in both strokes, but no 51/1:53 flyers or 58-second breaststrokers like we’ve seen in past classes. Some of that gets skewed by all-decade talents like Curzan or Torri Huske in previous classes, though, and this group has plenty of time to develop in both strokes.

**The 1000 free isn’t an event at the Division I NCAA Championships, but is swum instead of the 1650 in many Division I dual meets and is part of the NCAA program in Division II.

With that out of the way, let’s get to our rankings.

Disclaimer: there are a lot of high school sophomores in the country, and no really good, complete, 100% accurate listing of them all. If you don’t see your favorite swimmer on the list, feel free to politely point them out in the comments. There’s a chance that we disagree with your assessment of their spot in the top 20, and so long as it’s done civilly, there’s no problem with differences of opinions. There’s also a chance that we’ve simply missed a no-brainer (we’ve taken every precaution to avoid that), and if that happens, we want to make sure we correct it.

TOP 20 SWIMMERS FROM THE CLASS OF 2024

1. Katie Grimes– Sandpipers of Nevada – Las Vegas, NV
Best Times:

• 400 IM: 4:00.66 (best in class)
• 1650 free: 15:34.72 (best in class)
• 1000 free: 9:25.58 (best in class)
• 500 free: 4:32.97 (best in class)
• 200 free: 1:44.43
• 200 IM: 1:56.67
• 200 back: 1:52.83
• 100 back: 53.28
• 200 fly: 1:57.60
• 100 fly: 54.02

When we started ranking sophomore classes, we had no idea how easy it would become to pick the #1 recruit on the girls side. (If only it were that easy for the boys). Grimes exploded at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials to make the Olympic team at age 15. (Joining her on the Olympic team were the #1 recruits in three of the previous four sophomore classes we’ve ranked, too). She made the Olympics as an 800 freestyler, but she might actually project better as a collegiate 400 IMer in the short course pool. Her 4:00.66 is the fastest 400 IM time we’ve ever ranked – not just among sophomore classes, but among junior classes as well, going back to 2012. In fact, in the four other sophomore classes we’ve ranked, no swimmer has ever been faster than 4:05.5. Grimes’ time would have been third at this past year’s NCAA Championships – and she was only 15 years old when she swam it.

She’s got the fastest 1000 and 1650 free times we’ve ranked among sophomore classes, and is the second-best 500 free time behind only last year’s #1 recruit, fellow Olympian (and Sandpipers of Nevada teammate) Bella Sims. Grimes also swims down to the 200 free very well, which gives her the potential to contribute to relays. And what great distance prospect profile would be complete without a comparison to Katie Ledecky, so here goes: we weren’t ranking sophomores yet when Ledecky came through, but as a sophomore she was 1:42.9/4:31.3/9:22.3/15:28 in the 200 through 1650 freestyles. Grimes is not far off, and easily the best distance prospect we’ve seen since Ledecky.

2. Leah Hayes– Fox Valley Park District Riptide – Kaneland High School – Sugar Grove, IL
Best Times:

• 200 IM: 1:54.09 (best in class)
• 400 IM: 4:11.60
• 200 free: 1:44.13
• 100 free: 48.34
• 50 free: 22.86

A longtime age group standout, Hayes projects as an oustanding IMer who should also carry a heavy relay load at the NCAA level. Her 1:54.09 is the best 200 IM time in this class by a longshot – no one is within two and a half seconds of Hayes there. She also stacks up well compared to the current NCAA field – she would have placed 7th at 2022 NCAAs with her best time. Hayes is just a tick off the best 200 IM we’ve ever ranked in a sophomore class. (Olympian Alex Walsh was 1:54.02 as a sophomore back in the class of 2020). She’s also a very good 400 IMer, and between her 100 and 200 free speed, she should be a plug-and-play relay weapon by the time she sets foot on a college campus. Hayes is arguably better in long course meters, too, where she’s been 2:09/4:39 in the IMs and 54.8/1:59.1 in free.

3. Anna Moesch– Greater Somerset County YMCA – Green Brook, NJ
Best Times:

• 50 free: 21.97 (best in class)
• 100 free: 47.76 (best in class)
• 200 free: 1:44.10 (best in class)
• 200 IM: 1:59.34
• 400 IM: 4:18.81

Moesch has had a meteoric rise to becoming the class’s best sprint freestyler, separating herself from the clump of swimmers we noted at the top. At this time last year, she was 22.8/49.7/1:49.6 – that means drops of five and a half seconds in the 200 and two full seconds in the 100 free, showing a big improvement in her pacing and endurance. A standout 50/100/200 freestyler is going to have opportunities to contribute on any (or all) of the five NCAA relays, which is a massive recruiting value. Moesch distinguishes herself in another way, too: she’s an intriguing IMer, which could also suggest she’s got the chops to sprint a stroke or two if needed. Historically speaking, Moesch is a really high-level sprinter: she’s faster than the fastest sophomore sprinters in the class of 2020 (Alex Walsh‘s 22.0 and Regan Smith‘s 48.8) and checks in just a tick behind Class of 2022 standout Curzan (21.7/47.6 as a sophomore).

4. Levenia Sim – TNT Swimming – Spanish Fort High School