The NC State women’s swim & dive team capped off another solid season with a fifth-place finish at the 2023 NCAA Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee March 15-18.

Highlighted by senior Katharine Berkoff’s second-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke and a host of top-eight performances from fresh faces, the No. 4 Wolfpack fought hard among a talented field of Olympians, American record-holders and young stars. Ultimately, a disqualification in the 200-yard freestyle relay dealt a big blow to the Pack’s placement, and the team settled for fifth after doing the same in 2022.

Berkoff, senior Heather MacCausland, graduate student Kylee Alons and junior Abby Arens picked up crucial points with a second-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay on Wednesday evening. MacCausland posted the second-fastest breaststroke split in the field, and Arens brought the squad home in 21.26 for NC State’s second-fastest 200 medley relay to date.

Mid-distance freestyle has never been the women’s strong suit, and the Pack gained a little over a second in the 800-yard freestyle relay to finish 12th overall. At the end of the night, however, NC State sat in fifth place with 44 points.

Arens and freshman Kennedy Noble squeaked into the consolation final for the 200-yard individual medley, the latter of whom touching the wall merely 0.09 seconds ahead of the 17th-place finisher in the prelims. Berkoff was the first swimmer to make an A-final on Thursday morning, tying for sixth in the 50-yard freestyle for a shot at some big points in finals.

Arens, Noble and Berkoff combined for a total 22 points on Thursday evening thanks to a trio of top-16 finishes, but NC State lost crucial ground after its disqualification in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Although Berkoff, Alons, freshman Meghan Donald and Arens posted a time good enough for fifth, an early start robbed the Wolfpack of 28 much-needed points. By the end of Thursday night, NC State had fallen to 11th in the team standings.

Sophomore Grace Sheble swam with a vengeance on Saturday morning, dropping a little less than half a second to place third in the 400-yard individual medley prelims. Despite a 0.21-second add, Alons made it into the 100-yard butterfly finals, and junior Abbey Webb crushed a 24.39-second leadoff split in the 200-yard freestyle prelims to give NC State a shot at making up for Friday evening’s lost points.

Beside Sheble’s third-place prelims swim, the two most impressive performances of the morning came from Berkoff and MacCausland — both seniors held on tight to make the A-final in the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard breaststroke, respectively. MacCausland’s time of 58.14 was nearly a two-second improvement from her season-best in 2021, an impressive feat for any late-stage college swimmer.

NC State racked up 124 points on Friday night, a welcome boost after a night of solid swims. Sheble took home fifth in the 400-yard individual medley, good enough for her first All-American honors in the event. Arens won the 100-yard butterfly consolation final in 50.60, a personal best for the Raleigh native. Webb did the same in the 200-yard freestyle, setting a new program record in the process.

The real star of the show was MacCausland’s 100-yard breaststroke final — after dropping 0.02 in the morning, MacCausland shaved off another 0.4 seconds to place fifth overall. Her time of 57.74 beats out graduate student Andrea Podmanikova’s second-best mark in program history, accomplished a year after barely missing the consolation final in 2022.

Berkoff may have not successfully defended her national title, but a 49.13-second 100-yard backstroke is nothing to sneeze at. Although not quite hitting the previous year’s mark of 48.74, she finished nearly a second ahead of third-place finisher Claire Curzan to rake in crucial points for the Pack. Graduate student Emma Muzzy and Noble went 10-11 in the same event, giving NC State a total of 30 points in the 100-yard backstroke.

Making up for the previous night’s disqualification, Berkoff, MacCausland, Alons and Arens combined for a second-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay to pull the Wolfpack back up to fifth place overall.

On the final morning of competition, Noble and Muzzy teamed up again to finish 5-6 in the 200-yard backstroke for a shot at some hardware. Noble was the second-fastest freshman in the field behind Curzan, and Muzzy has a shot at her highest finish in the event since 2020.

Berkoff dipped under 47 seconds for the first time this season to finish fourth in the 100-yard freestyle prelims, and MacCausland shaved off half a second in the 200-yard breaststroke to squeak into Saturday night’s consolation final. Arens, the ACC champion in the 200-yard butterfly, didn’t quite make it into the A-final but touched the wall in 1:54.45, good enough for 11th place.

Saturday evening’s session wasn’t quite as successful for NC State — a tired group of swimmers mostly swam above their prelims time, ultimately cementing a fifth-place finish behind Louisville. That being said, Berkoff lowered her personal best by 0.04 seconds to 46.87, good enough for fifth place and a new program record. Noble also chopped 0.3 seconds off her prelims time in the 200-yard backstroke to place fifth overall, an impressive feat for a first-year.

Berkoff, Alons, Webb and Arens capped off the final session with a fourth-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. That 30-point performance brought NC State’s point total to 263, 25 points behind Louisville.

The NC State men will return to the pool March 21-25 for NCAA Championships.