Gabriel Jett (Cal) and Alex Walsh (Virginia) Choose 200 Fly On Friday (ACC SCRATCH REPORT) ...Middle East

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

2025 ACC Swimming and Diving Championships

Friday Prelims Heat Sheets

Friday, the fourth day of the 2025 ACC Championships, saw a number of significant event choices among top names in the meet. That includes big choices from the two teams leading the meet: the Virginia women and the Cal men.

Virginia Women

Alex Walsh had a choice to make between swimming the 200 fly as the #2 seed and the 100 breaststroke as the #1 seed. She ultimately opted for the former, reverting to her more traditional events in spite of swimming a nation-leading 56.85 two weeks ago.

The 5th-year Walsh is the defending ACC Champion in the event, though she didn’t swim it at her freshman, sophomore, or junior ACC Championships. Likewise, she was the NCAA Champion in the event as a sophomore and finished 2nd at NCAAs as a junior, but skipped the event in favor of the 200 breast at last year’s NCAA Championship as a senior.

The four-time defending NCAA Champion Virginia women tend to tinker with their lineups at ACCs, so those event choices don’t necessarily tell us much about her plans for Federal Way in March.

That leaves Duke’s Kaelyn Gridley (58.14) as the top seed. Stanford’s Lucy Bell (#5 seed) and Virginia’s Aimee Canny (58.47) have both scratched the event as well.

A similar story is true for redshirt sophomore Claire Curzan, a transfer from Stanford. She won’t have any individual races on Friday after dropping the 100 back, though she may swim a leg of Virginia’s 400 medley relay in the evening. She was the #2 seed behind her teammate Gretchen Walsh, the fastest 100 yard backstroker in history.

Curzan was 3rd in the 50 free (21.26) and 2nd in the 100 fly (49.02) earlier in the meet: both new lifetime bests. She will now have a choice between the 200 back (#1 seed) and 100 free (#4 seed) on Saturday to wrap up her meet.

Cal Men

The Cal Golden Bears, which is among the best men’s backstroke programs in the world, had the top two seeds coming into the meet in the 100 backstroke: Gabriel Jett (44.54) and Evan Petty (44.97).

Jett is opting to swim the 200 fly instead, where he is the #2 seed (1:40.06) behind Stanford’s Andrei Minakov (1:40.01).

Jett was 2nd in the 500 free (4:10.27), but was surprisingly absent from the 200 free on Thursday (#5 seed). That implies that he will wrap his meet with the 200 back on Saturday, where his 1:38.31 makes him the top seed ahead of his teammate Destin Lasco (1:39.21), though Lasco is the NCAA Record holder.

Jett has always been a 200 butterflier, but this season has done a lot of work on underwaters – and his backstroke start – which resulted in a 1.3 second drop in the 100 back mid-season.

Petty would have been the second seed in Jett’s absence, but he’s not swimming the 100 back either, nor any other individual event on Friday. He scratched the 50 free earlier in the meet, has not raced yet, and has only one remaining entry, implying that there was more than a ‘best event’ choice being made here. His last entry is the 100 free on Saturday.

Their absence leaves Virginia Tech 5th year Youssef Ramadan as the top seed with a season best of 45.07.

Other High Seed Scratches

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