The Brock Badgers women's and men's swimming teams set new program standards.
Competing over three days from Thursday, March 12 to Saturday, March 14, the Badgers broke 11 school records at the 2026 U SPORTS Swimming Championships held at the Markham Pan Centre in Markham, Ont.
The women's team placed 10th with 184 points to earn their best finish since 2001, while the men's group finished 16th with 86 points to tie their best placing since 2006.
"We had a great breakthrough year for our women's team," said head coach Dave Ling. "We thought we had a pretty strong team in the beginning of the year and they just got better by the month. Them moving up to third in the province was great and being Top 10 here was our goal, and it went all the way down to the last relay."
Tatum O'Connor led the Badgers women's swimming results with two appearances in the A finals, finishing fourth in the 100-metre backstroke event with a time of one minute and 300 milliseconds and sixth in the 50m backstroke in a Brock record time of 27.49. That record-breaking time surpassed the 27.65 she posted last year to claim bronze in the same event.
The Dundas, Ont., product partnered with Cassidy Karrel, Quinn Mersereau and Grace Chai to capture eighth place in the 4x100m freestyle relay (3:46.45), setting a school record and eclipsing the previous mark of 3:52.25 set by her, Chai, Mersereau and Adriana Martone.
The Badgers continued their record-breaking relay success in the 4x200m freestyle relay as Chai, Karrel, Mersereau and Mia Frederiksen combined for a time of 8:28.14 to break the previous program record of 8:36.42, which had stood since 2011 and was set by current assistant coach Victoria Culp along with Baylee Colquhoun, Ashley Duquette and Cora Michener
In the final relay race of the competition, O'Connor, Martone, Chai and
Danielle Moss placed sixth in the 4x100m medley relay with a time of 4:10.31, which broke the previous record held by this group (4:13.22).
Chai and Martone both set Brock records in individual races as Chai touched the wall in 55.81 in the 100m freestyle preliminaries before finishing 13th overall in the race (56.26), while Martone broke the school mark twice in the 50m breaststroke, first posting 32.53 in the heats before improving to 32.45 in the C final later that day. Both bested their previous efforts of 56.13 and 32.57, respectively.
On the men's side of the competition, Noah Chang impressed in his first national championship, placing sixth in the A final of the 50m breaststroke in a time of 27.57. His preliminary time of 27.51 set a new Badger standard that he previously set (27.58) and ranked him the fifth heading into the final.
"It's easy to get lost in the women's team success and not recognize the men's program," Ling said. "At the OUA Championships, they scored more points than they last year and having three men contribute to the point total at U SPORTS is very exciting."
Camren Courchene-Carter also passed his own program records in the 200m breaststroke as he first recorded a time of 2:15.69 in the heats before lowering it to 2:14.21 in the C final.
Both Chang and Courchene-Carter also contributed points early in the meet, finishing seventh (15th overall) and eighth (16th overall) in the B final of the 100m breaststroke with times of 1:00.72 and 1:00.96.
In the 200m individual medley, Ethan Rotsaert-Smith eclipsed the previous time of 2:06.90 set by Lucas Moavro in 2024 as he touched the wall in 2:06.27 in the heats.
The team standings saw the UBC Thunderbirds sweep both titles, with the Toronto Varsity Blues finishing second on both sides. The Calgary Dinos placed third in the men's competition, while the McGill Martlets captured bronze in the women's standings.
With these results, Ling is hopeful for the future of the program.
"When we look at next year, we got a bunch of people pre-qualified for U SPORTS ,and we hope to add a few more," he said. "We have some nice incoming first years that we're really excited about. We lose our senior leadership, but it creates a vacuum where we see some of those on the team step up and want to pursue finalists at that next level."
WOMEN'S TEAM STANDINGS AT THE 2026 U SPORTS SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
1. UBC, 1,445.00
2. Toronto, 1,029.00
3. McGill, 978.50
4. Calgary, 723.50
5. Western, 493.00
6. Ottawa, 354.00
7. Victoria, 278.50
8. Laval, 268.50
9. Montreal, 262.50
10. Brock, 184.00
11. Guelph, 179.50
12. Lethbridge, 174.50
13. Dalhousie, 167.50
14. McMaster, 137.00
15. Waterloo, 118.00
16. Manitoba, 112.00
17. Sherbrooke, 79.00
18. Carleton, 59.00
MEN'S TEAM STANDINGS AT THE 2026 U SPORTS SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
1. UBC, 1,644.00
2. Toronto, 935.50
3. Calgary, 883.50
4. McGill, 770.50
5. Montreal, 345.00
6. Ottawa, 342.00
7. Victoria, 324.00
8. Western, 288.00
9. McMaster, 175.00
10. Dalhousie, 149.00
11. York, 140.00
12. Waterloo, 135.50
13. Laval, 111.00
14. Laurier, 110.00
15. UNB, 95.00
16. Brock, 86.00
17. Sherbrooke, 82.00
18. Lethbridge, 78.00
19. Manitoba, 60.00
20. Regina, 35.00
21. UQTR, 4.00
