Mattice Qualifies for NCAAs in the Mile

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue senior Reagan Mattice has officially qualified for the NCAA Championships in the longest swimming event at the meet, the 1650-yard freestyle.

Mattice earned her bid via a lifetime best mark of 16:14.70 in the mile at the Big Ten Championships. She moved into third place in program history and ranked 30th nationally in the event among the invited swimmers to NCAAs.

The Zionsville native had previously achieved the NCAAs qualifying standard (16:25.29) with a time of 16:21.01 at the Ohio State Invitational in November. Her 6.31-second time drop from midseason to Big Tens is what earned Mattice the bid. The cutline for non-automatic bids was approximately 16:18.00.

Diving qualifiers for the NCAA Championships will be determined next week at the annual NCAA Zone Diving Championships, which features five sites around the country (Purdue is part of Zone C). Men’s swimming qualifiers for NCAAs will also be announced next week (March 11). The Purdue men’s 200 medley relay team has earned a bid by achieving an NCAA automatic qualifying time at the Big Ten Championships.

The revamped event schedule at the NCAA Championships now features the mile as the first event of the four-day showcase on Wednesday, March 18. The mile is also the lone individual event that does not have prelims and finals, instead featuring its customary timed-finals format. Mattice will be among the group that competes in the heats starting at 10 a.m. ET in Atlanta. The top eight seeds race in the last heat, which begins at 6:05 p.m. as part of the finals session. The 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays continued to be featured on Wednesday at the NCAA Championships as well. All relays have prelims and finals again.

Diving continues to begin Thursday at the NCAA Championships.

Along with the revamped event schedule at NCAAs, the qualifying process was updated to provide conference champions in all events an automatic bid to the national championship meet provided he/she achieved an NCAA Championships qualifying time while winning the conference title. The women’s 1650 freestyle had two such qualifiers with times above the 16:18.00 cutline.

Purdue’s first-year associate head coach Caitlin Hamilton was a two-time NCAA Championships qualifier and All-American in the mile in 2010 and 2011. She finished top 8 in the event as a freshman in 2010 as Purdue hosted the national championship meet.

In the years since, distance standouts Kaersten Meitz (2015-18) and Allie Davis (2015-16) were also multi-year NCAA Championships qualifiers in the mile for the Boilermakers.

Georgia Tech is hosting both the men’s and women’s NCAA Championships this season for the second time this decade (also in 2022). The women’s meet is set for March 18-21 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta.