GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The 2025 NCAA Division III Women's Swimming and Diving Championship came to a close on Saturday night, and the Kenyon College women's swimming and diving team finished off another stellar season by bringing home bronze after a third-place finish at the national finale. The defending champion Owls battled to the end over four days at the Greensboro Aquatics Center, and the final day saw a second individual NCAA title and two Kenyon records, one rewritten and one matched.

Jennah Fadely finished off her incredible career by winning an individual crown for the second straight day. The senior swam in two races to wrap up her busy seven-race championship slate, winning the 200-yard breaststroke before adding All-America honors in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Fadely's title came with a winning time of 2:11.22, tying her winning time in 2023 that was and is still tied for both a personal best and the top time in the Kenyon record book. The victory marked Fadely's eighth NCAA Championship, and she finished with 24 All-America awards by evening's end. That mark ties her for the 14th-most All-America honors in Kenyon women's swimming and diving history.

The 200 breaststroke was one of two high-scoring events for the Owls and marked the team's highest single-event point total with 50. Gabrielle Wei, last year's champion, finished second at 2:11.67, the second straight season in which Wei and Fadely went back-to-back. Wei's silver-medal time was a personal best, shaving 0.03 seconds off her gold-medal time from last season. Kelsey Van Eldik helped the Owls account for half of the top six finishes, placing sixth at 2:14.96, a season-best for the first-year.

Kenyon got a big boost following the final session's first event, the 1,650-yard freestyle. Three Owls placed inside the top 10, while two Kenyon women claimed spots on the podium. Bengisu Caymaz and Molly Haag placed second and third, respectively, while Nora Lee Brown placed 10th as the trio helped the Owls pull into second place in the team standings, the closest Kenyon had come to the top of the standings since leading the pack through day one.

Caymaz, last year's 1,650 freestyle champion, secured silver after stopping the clock at 16:28.38. The time shattered her own personal best of 16:34.52 and last year's winning time of 16:34.67, and it also easily cleared the Kenyon record of 16:33.29 set by Marysol Arce at the 2016 NCAA Championship. The stellar swim would have been good for gold in nearly any other race, but Bowdoin College's Natalie Garre took the title with an NCAA-record time of 16:17.84, clearing the previous record by 3.6 seconds. Haag also had a career-best swim, clocking in at 16:38.62. The mark was good for third place and broke her personal record of 16:46.37. Brown checked in at 17:03.10, the first-year's third All-America swim.

The 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke came between Kenyon's two high-scoring events, and Gwen Eisenbeis led the way for the Owls with an appearance in the consolation final of the 200 backstroke. The junior stopped the clock at 2:00.44, a season-best in the event for the Owls and a personal best for Eisenbeis. Her time was good for fourth in the B final and 12th place overall as she earned a ninth career All-America award.

The 400-yard freestyle relay marked the end of the four-day meet, and Kenyon's quartet of Haag, Fadely, Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault, and Sydney Geboy combined for a fifth-place finish. The team clocked in at 3:21.68 to close out the 2024-25 campaign.

Kenyon was one of three teams to top 400 points in the overall standings. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology came back after sitting second for most of the meet to win the title with a 497-point total. New York University secured silver with 470 points to add to the podium-worthy placements. Denison University (370.5) and Emory University (337) rounded out the top five as all five teams stayed tight for most of the meet.

MIT claimed the crown from the Owls after Kenyon's 2024 NCAA Championship, marking the first national title in the Engineers' program history. The standings also saw Kenyon fall outside of the top two teams for the first time since 2017 as MIT and NYU compiled stellar championship performances to edge out the fantastic Owls finishes. 

Additionally, for the first time since Kenyon's record-setting NCAA Championship streak of 17 straight titles was started by Jim Steen in 1984, the coach of the national championship-winning team was not either Coach Steen or someone coached by Steen. Prior to MIT Head Coach Meg Sisson French, the last 39 NCAA women's swimming and diving championships were either won by teams coached by Jim Steen or by a Kenyon swimmer turned coach who came from Steen's impressive coaching tree.