Anna Moesch Becoming Newest Cavaliers Star, Pursuing Freestyle Titles and Records at NCAA Championships
When she arrived at the University of Virginia in the fall of 2024, Anna Moesch joined one of the great active dynastic runs in college swimming. Less than two seasons later, the 20-year-old from Green Brook, N.J., is on the verge of becoming the next star to lead the Cavaliers to a national championship.
Moesch was hardly an unknown prior to college. She was a well-established sprinter who had supplied dominant performances at meets like YMCA Nationals, won junior-level international medals for the United States and almost reached a final at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, falling to veteran Erika Connolly in a swim-off for eighth place in the 100 freestyle. In short-course yards, Moesch swam times quick enough to score points at the NCAA Championships during her high school days, and she was sure to be an immediate contributor to Virginia’s relays.
She has fulfilled that promise and more. Within 19 months, Moesch has become a senior-level World Championship medalist and put herself in position to challenge the oldest American record in the short-course yards format. At last month’s ACC Championships, Moesch swam a time of 1:39.72 in the 200 free, making her the third-fastest woman ever in the event. She is within two-thirds of a second of the American and NCAA records held since 2015 by Missy Franklin, and she begins this week’s NCAA Championships as the top-seeded swimmer in that event as well as the 100 free.
The credit, Moesch said, belongs to the systems and culture at Virginia, the same arrangement under head coach Todd DeSorbo that had produced four consecutive NCAA team titles before her arrival, all in dominant fashion, and vaulted Paige Madden, Kate Douglass, Alex Walsh and Gretchen Walsh into NCAA champions and Olympic medalists.
“It’s such a just such a different environment once you get here. Everyone is just the most hard-working and talented people,” Moesch said. “There’s just so many inspiring people on the team that I look at every day, and I think that kind of made me just that much more motivated and excited to be here every day. It’s such a different experience than high school, and it just is a lot more like kind of laid back and fun. And that when I got here, it was pressure, but good pressure.”
The fit worked both ways, as Moesch placed a deep personal emphasis on being a good teammate.
“I just want to be like a comfortable person for everyone to kind of go to. I just want to make every practice and meet be as lighthearted as possible, because I know internally, it’s already something that’s a lot to handle,” she said. “So I try to bring calmness to high stress moments like that. If you’re ever in the ready was ready room with me, I’m going to talk to you. If my teammate and we’re behind the blocks before a relay together, I’m going to talk to you.”
Moesch’s Welcome to the Big Leagues in 2025
During her freshman season, the Cavaliers could have won a fifth consecutive title without Moesch, as both Walsh sisters excelled in their final collegiate campaigns while Claire Curzan became eligible to race for Virginia for the first time; indeed, that group accounted for six individual titles last March. But Moesch held her own, with best times at the national meet yielding a fourth-place finish in the 100 free and fifth in the 200-yard race. She took part in three title-winning relays.
Just over two months later, Moesch broke through by qualifying for the World Championships team with a sixth-place finish in the 100 free at U.S. Nationals. Moesch held off Virginia teammate Maxine Parker by two hundredths to claim the coveted final relay spot on the team bound for Singapore.
Anna Moesch — Photo Courtesy: ACC
“Going to the meet, Todd would talk to me and be like, ‘There is a shot,’” Moesch said. “I think I had a lot less stress on myself because I didn’t expect to do anything. I just wanted to see what I can do. And so I think going into that night, and there were three other UVA swimmers in the A-final, so it was just a lot of fun and a position I’ve never been in before.”
What followed in Singapore was an eye-opening experience. Moesch returned home with two silver medals for the prelims legs she handled on both U.S. women’s freestyle relays but also a full picture of the requirements for championship-level performance.
Moesch was one of just two rookies on a Worlds team stocked with experienced swimmers, and she saw her fellow Americans battle through eight days of competition while fighting off the effects of a gastrointestinal illness that affected most of the squad.
“Just being surrounded by the talent there and seeing the dedication of everyone there was so inspiring. Watching the way they were working to perform at the meet, it was just a kind of experience that I’ve never had before,” Moesch said.
“I think everyone’s [handling of] adversity and their acceptance of when things were going super wrong. Everyone just kept morale so high, and they knew they had a job to do, regardless of the circumstances. Everyone showed up to the meet so ready to represent Team USA and just swim the best that they possibly could, no matter what had happened in the last couple of days. And I think that was super inspiring to see just how committed everyone was to that meet and their swims and their performances.”
The end of the summer brought a disappointing development: USA Swimming selected the team for the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships based on summer 2025 times, but with no prelims relays at that meet, only the top five swimmers made the team in the 100 free. Eight Virginia women made the cut, but not Moesch, a development that she used as fuel.
“After this past summer, I came in the most motivated I’ve ever been. I talked to Todd, and I was like, ‘I want to be on the national team for the foreseeable future,’” Moesch said. “It’s on my mind throughout the entire season, and I think that him knowing that and me knowing that pushes me to be the best I can every day in practice. And he pushed me a lot harder this year than he did last year.”
Sophomore Star Turn
Her practices this season have included an increased focus on aerobic and threshold swimming, Moesch transitioning to the upper-distance group multiple times per week. Seeing a correlation between the long-course 100 free and the short-course 200, Moesch embraced training for the eight-lap event, work “I’ve never done before,” lie repeats of 300, 400 and 600 yards.
The results have been startling. She went from a best time of 1:42.39 in the 2025 NCAA final to 1:41.42 in an October dual meet against Florida. At midseason, Moesch swam a time of 1:40.25, quicker than the winning time at every NCAA Championships since 2018 and becoming the fourth-fastest woman in history. Three months later at the ACC Championships, Moesch would leapfrog Mallory Comerford on the all-time list with her 1:39.72.
Only Gretchen Walsh’s 1:39.34 from last season and Franklin’s 1:39.10 remain in front of Moesch. Franklin set that record at her second and last NCAA Championships in 2015, the best yards swim in her Hall-of-Fame career. Moesch was nine years old at the time. “I don’t know if I watched it at the time she was doing it, but after I got more into swimming, I watched it and I found it super inspiring,” she said.
Anna Moesch (right) with Virginia teammate Aimee Canny — Photo Courtesy: ACC
That record will be on her target list at the NCAA meet, with Moesch entering more than seven tenths ahead of No. 2 seed Minna Abraham.
As for the 100 free, Moesch is the third-quickest swimmer in that event all-time, with only Walsh and Simone Manuel ahead. Moesch clocked 45.71 at the ACC meet to edge out Torri Huske, the Stanford senior who was the Olympic silver medalist in the 100-meter free. A rematch awaits on the national level. Moesch will also contend for a medal in the 50 free, in which she enters with the fifth-best time of 21.22.
As for the relay events, Moesch’s dramatic time drops have largely made up for the team’s high-profile graduations. Virginia is seeded first in all five relays at the NCAA Championships, with huge advantages in all except the 200 medley relay. Records set during the Walsh era seemed destined to last years, but the Cavaliers have already broken the NCAA record in the 400 free relay this season, when at ACCs, Moesch teamed with Curzan, Aimee Canny and Sara Curtis to knock a half-second off the NCAA record in the 400 free relay.
Virginia will be favored to become the first women’s team ever to win six consecutive national titles, breaking a tie with Texas (1984-1988) and Stanford (1992-1996) with five apiece. The Cardinal lost out to USC in 1997 by 11 points, but no team appears to pose such a threat to this Moesch-led Cavaliers team.
This year could also mark the sixth straight year with a Virginia swimmer winning multiple individual titles after Madden in 2021, Douglass and Alex Walsh in 2022, Douglass and Gretchen Walsh in 2023 and Gretchen Walsh the last two years.
“More than anything, I just want to perform my events to the best technical way possible,” Moesch said. “I have a lot of technical flaws when it comes to turns and everything. And so I think I want to perfect that going to the meet to give myself the best shot of going a best time.” On the possibility of a 1:38 in the 200 free, she admitted, “I definitely have thought about it, but most importantly, I want to do the best for my team.”
She has thought ahead to long course as well, hoping to throw down times this summer that rival the swimmers at Pan Pacs. Moesch looks forward to building on her success in the 100-meter race long course while zeroing in on the 200, a race that “has always kind of scared me.” She added, “After the training I’ve done this year, I don’t really fear anything anymore. I think I’ve also become a lot more comfortable with the 200 free short course, so I think the 200 free long course will come.”
Moesch’s mental approach centers on incremental progress and stepping stones, preferring to de-emphasize time goals and remain forward-looking. “When I go a really good time, it’s always like, ‘OK, now, what am I going to do next time?’” Moesch said. “I like the idea that it’s something that’s infinite and doesn’t stop.”
Already, that formula has brought Moesch to college swimming’s central stage. After this NCAA season is complete, a global-level breakthrough might not be far behind.
