A set of double shoulder surgeries and nearly two years out of competition would be enough to send most collegiate athletes to an early retirement. But senior diver Margo O’ Meara isn’t any regular athlete. Barely a year after her return to the sport, O’ Meara flipped her way to 10th place in the nation in the 1-meter event at the NCAA Championships.
Alongside O’ Meara, seven swimmers represented the Blue Devil women at the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships in Federal Way, Wash., over the last week. Duke left the West Coast in 21st place overall, with 33 points — five places behind its record-breaking 16th-place finish from 2024.
To qualify for NCAA Championships, athletes must swim to at least one of a set of lofty time standards in the regular season. Each event has an “A” standard (automatic qualification) and a “B” standard (potential invitation), with different times for men and women. Divers earn their spots at the championships by performing well in their schools’ respective zones (Duke is in Zone B, or the Southeast region). O’Meara earned the sole diving bid for the Blue Devils.
Sophomore Ali Pfaff, alongside juniors Kaelyn Gridley and Tatum Wall, competed in individual events, while freshman Clare Logan and senior KyAnh Truong joined the team as part of the relay squad. Sophomore Molly Donlan also made her way to Washington as an alternate for the Blue Devils. No members of the Duke men’s program qualified for NCAAs.
While the Blue Devils were not as successful as they were in their 2024 Championship run, the 2025 meet was defined by repeated championship placements and consistency.
The 200-yard women’s freestyle relay kicked off night two of the meet with a fiery school record of 1:28.12. The team — Pfaff, Truong, Wall and Logan — knocked .14 seconds off the previous record of 1:28.26. Notably, Pfaff, Truong and Wall were all members of the relay that set the previous school record in the 2023-24 season. The record-breaking swim earned the 2025 squad a 17th-place finish, setting a high standard for the rest of the meet.
Gridley added a pair of new trophies to her collection with top-10 finishes in both the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke events. The Wilmette, Il., native earned the ACC title for the 100-yard event in late February, beating Olympic gold medalist Emma Weber of Virginia by just .04 seconds. Gridley looked to repeat her performance at NCAAs, facing off against an even faster field.
This time around, she dominated the 200-yard event.
Repeating her 2024 performance, Gridley took home fourth place in the 200-yard breaststroke, swimming 2:05.91 in the finals. She improved upon her prelim performance of 2:06.93 by over a second, which had seeded Gridley at fourth for the final. In the 100-yard race, she placed eighth in the finals at 58.72, earning Duke 11 points — a third of its meet total.
Gridley’s performance earned her First Team All-America honors for the third year running. She was the only member of the Duke program with the distinction. O’ Meara, however, came close, becoming an Honorable Mention All-American as a result of her dominance on the springboard.
O’Meara won a total of 309.20 points for her 10th place finish. Her best dive was her fourth, a forward two-and-a-half somersault pike, which added 54.60 points to her total. The St. Louis native showed impressive consistency, scoring 54 or over in three of her six dives. Alongside her fourth-round dive, O’ Meara scored a pair of 54s on her first-round inward one-and-a-half somersault pike and a third-round reverse one-half somersault pike.
O’Meara and her fellow seniors are out of swim meets to prepare for. The season has come to a close, and the next stop for them is graduation.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.