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While a bulk of the team points in NCAA Swimming and Diving meets come from swimming, it is no secret that diving has the potential to play a huge role and sway results in an unpredictable manner.
In an effort to expand NCAA coverage here on Swimswam, we have compiled a list of the top 10 women’s recruits for the high school class of 2026. The goal of this expanded coverage is to provide our readers with a more complete view of how recruiting will impact the future of a team.
Methodology
Ranking divers is more complex and less black and white than ranking swimmers. Diving is a subjective sport, meaning that simply looking at scores does not provide a full picture compared to looking at a swimmer’s time. The scoring is open to interpretation, so it was important for us not just to look at results while compiling these rankings, but to also analyze video and formulate our own opinions in the process.
Within Division I of the NCAA, most dual meets in diving only contest the one-meter and three-meter springboard events. Platform diving, for the most part, only comes into play for invitationals and championship meets. Divers with the ability to compete platform right out of high school are not very common, but are very valuable. This versatility of having a platform-capable diver is important for college teams because it simply means more chances to score points.
Being successful in the junior ranks in diving does not always translate to success at the NCAA or senior level. It was important for us to consider potential when composing this ranking as previous success isn’t always a reliable indicator.
This list focuses on American-based athletes as it is difficult to predict if international athletes will choose to compete in the NCAA. Additionally, this list is not exhaustive of all the talented NCAA recruits in this class and does not mean any diver omitted doesn’t have the potential to make valuable contributions to a college team.
Honorable Mentions
Alexa Venglar – The Woodlands Diving Academy – Richmond, TX
Venglar has shown a lot of promise on the platform with very big and difficult dives for her age. Her challenge moving forward is to clean up the execution and gain consistency on those difficult dives. She also definitely has room to grow on the springboard events.
Elizabeth Bircher – Longhorn Aquatics – Austin, TX
Bircher has a great and rare quality in a diver that is very, very difficult to teach: she knows how to go in the water with no splash. This is especially apparent on the 10-meter platform, her best event. What’s currently holding her back from making the list is her lack of difficulty on platform and her relative weakness on the springboard events.
Hadley Mulbury – Ripfest – Noblesville, IN
Mulbury is similar to Venglar in that they both have great difficulty in their platform lists, but needs to clean up her execution and find consistency in competition. Hadley definitely shines more on the platform compared to the springboard events and has pretty lines in her diving which help with getting those high judges scores.
10. Hayden Ferenc – Fort Lauderdale Diving Team – Fort Lauderdale, FL
Starting off our list is Hayden Ferenc, mainly a platform specialist out of Florida. She has a great natural ability to get in the water cleanly, which is essential for getting high scores. Her strong proven results on the platform immediately can make her an asset on many college teams.
Something that gave us the extra push to include Hayden on the list over others is her potential on the springboard. A big quality to look for in a springboard diver out of high school is strength and, more specifically, the ability to jump high. While Hayden currently isn’t as accomplished on the springboard as she is on the platform, we believe she has the potential to grow a lot on those events.
9. Avaleigh Westfall – Sunshine Dive Club – Ypsilanti, MI
Westfall is another diver who is competitive on the platform. In Westfall’s case she doesn’t have one big stand-out event, her results indicate that she’s about equally strong in each of the three NCAA contested events. She has some really high-difficulty dives in her springboard list, which is a testament to her strength. This bodes well for her future on the springboard. However, one glaring weakness in Westfall’s diving is her twisting dives. In every event, divers are required to compete at least one dive from the “twister” category. On the three-meter and platform, Westfall only does a relatively basic twister dive, so increasing her difficulty in that category is something she’ll be working towards.
8. Quintilia Fidanza – Knight Diving Academy – Downingtown, PA
Fidanza is a strong springboard diver, but can be a little messy in her form at times. On the positive side, she is a very strong jumper and has good difficulty. She’s almost at the level of cracking the top five in this list, but just has a few small details that need to be cleaned up. Once those are resolved, she’ll see her scores skyrocket. She also has very difficult dives on the platform, but it’s a similar story to her springboard. Once she fixes her execution and can improve her consistency, I can see her being a future NCAA scorer.
7. Simone Hall – Ripfest – Indianapolis, IN
Hall is a diver who is fairly strong in all three diving events. She does have a solid platform list, which makes her an asset compared to the many divers across the country who strictly do springboard. In contrast to many other athletes on this ranking, Hall has relatively low difficulty in her list across all her events. However, she ranks at number seven because she has had solid results from competitions recently. The ability to compete consistently is a big asset in diving and will take her far at the NCAA level, especially once she increases her difficulty.
6. Victoria Wang – New York Dive Club – Manhasset, NY
Wang is an interesting case as she did not compete in this year’s junior national championship meet despite qualifying. She also is strictly a springboard-only diver, so she currently has only two events she can compete in. Despite all this, Wang ranks this high because we see so much potential in her. She is very fast-twitched, which is a valuable asset that cannot be taught. Fast-twitch abilities transfer over very well to platform diving, so even though Wang currently only dives springboard, she could have a future on the higher boards. She also has high difficulty with good execution and a lot of strength. If she continues on her current improvement curve, she could easily be a multi-event NCAA scorer.
5. Juliet Radich – Coral Springs Diving – Fort Lauderdale, FL
Radich is a platform diver through and through. While she does also compete in the springboard events, she really shines as a 10-meter diver and seems to be better the higher up she is. She is a relatively strong three-meter diver with the one meter being her weakness.
Radich’s ability to enter the water with a minimal splash is an amazing quality that helped her to win the junior national title on the platform this year. Her great execution allows her to be successful on springboard at the junior level, but she’ll want to increase her strength in order to get the harder dives that’ll make her a competitive springboard diver at the NCAA and senior national level.
4. Gianna Kenrick – Mission Viejo Nadadores – Placenta, CA
Kenrick is a strong diver all around in all three events. She already has a lot of the more difficult platform dives that will make her competitive at the NCAA level as well as the good execution to pair with it. The Mission Viejo Nadadores diving team is known for their technique and attention to detail and Kenrick is no exception.
Though her best competition results come on the platform, Kenrick is strong and gets good height on springboard, so that bodes well for her potential on those events. She has the potential to be a three-event scorer at any conference championship meet and potentially even at the NCAA championships in the future.
3. Lilly Rogers – Indiana International School of Diving – Indianapolis, IN
Rogers is a phenomenal platform diver with so much potential. Her lines are exquisite and her form and technique are textbook. She has no “built-in deductions” in her diving because it always looks so beautiful. Similarly to Juliet, she gets slightly weaker as she moves down, but she has so much potential that we couldn’t place her outside the top three of this list.
Her current competitive list has a mix of high-difficulty and really low-difficulty dives. As she develops as an athlete, she will definitely be aiming to implement those harder dives into her list. Aesthetically, Rogers is probably the best diver on this list. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rogers competing on the senior international stage in the future.
2. Madeline Kohel – Minnesota Diving Academy – Minneapolis, MN
Kohel has been suffering from a back injury recently, so she only competed on the one-meter at this year’s junior national championships. However, she still managed to compete well and make the final in her lone event at the championships. The reason she is up so high on the list is because she showcases tremendous potential.
Though we didn’t see her compete in the three-meter at Junior Nationals, her abilities in that event are just as good, if not better than her already stellar one meter diving. She has showcased some really high-difficulty dives in training, some of which already look to be nearing competition-ready. In recent years, Kohel has competed only on springboard, but she does have a small history of platform diving in her past, so she does at least have experience on that event. It is likely that she will elect to stick to springboard for the remainder of her career because of her history with back injuries, but that remains to be seen.
1. Isabel Baley – City of Midland – Midland, TX
Baley is our pick for the top recruit in the high school class of 2026 because of her great abilities on the one-meter, three-meter and platform events. Though the springboard events are her forté, she also has a solid platform list that could make some valuable contributions to any team’s point total.
Baley has been one of the top junior divers in the U.S. for years now, and has garnered a lot of international experience because of that. The level of diving in the NCAA is generally more elevated than that of national competitions, so previous experience competing against the best from other nations could very well play in her favor. She already has the ability to score on the springboard events at NCAA’s and with a little more development on the platform, could be a potential 3-event scorer at the NCAA meet.