Rosie Murphy’s senior season has stood out for more reasons than it being her last.
The Sacramento local has etched her name in Bruin history, shattering school records while leading the team to multiple conference championship podium finishes.
And on the biggest stage in collegiate swimming, she delivered once more.
Murphy led No. 24 UCLA swim and dive (2-4-1, 1-1-0 Big Ten) to 20th place at the NCAA Championships – its first top-20 finish since the 2018-19 season – earning All-American honors in two of her events and scoring 28 of the squad’s 39 total points. Senior Eden Cheng secured an All-American honorable mention for the fourth consecutive year, and the Bruins earned their highest finish in the 200-yard medley relay in more than a decade at the national competition, held March 18 to 21 in Atlanta.
“The NCAA championship in our sport is a really specific competition – only the top 16 in every event score, and truth be told, the vast majority are spread across five or six schools across the country,” coach Jordan Cordry said. “It’s hard to crack in there, and so to make a difference, you have to not only be good across the board, but you have to have a few exceptional performers and performances.”
In her first swim at the NCAAs, Murphy broke a program record, recording a 4:02.22 mark in the 400-yard IM prelims – nearly two seconds below her previous best time. She added more than a second in the final, swimming 4:03.55 to secure seventh place in a stacked final that included Olympians Bella Sims and Katie Grimes.
“I knew I had a good race in me,” Murphy said. “I knew I just had to race the girls next to me and go out with them.”
Murphy also earned a 1:54.18 to finish eighth in the 200-yard IM. The only A final she missed was the 200-yard backstroke, but the senior broke a school record in the process, earning a 1:51.40 finish for 12th place in the prelims. Murphy previously set UCLA’s 200-yard backstroke record at the Big Ten Championships in February.
Murphy said her performance at the Big Ten Championships – in which she took second in the 200-yard IM and 200-yard backstroke and earned bronze in the 400-yard IM – both left her wanting more and gave her the confidence to know she could secure a top-eight finish at nationals.
“I was really, really hungry,” Murphy said. “Going into every race, I was giving it all that I had, and I knew I had to give it my all for every race in the morning and at night. I was really fired up to achieve my goals and to represent my team.”
[Related: ‘Historic performance’: UCLA swim and dive finishes 7th at Big Ten Championships]
Junior Sarah Bennetts, freshman Jada Duncan, sophomore Anna Wetteland and sophomore Claudia Yovanovich combined to swim 1:35.99 in the 200-yard medley relay, earning 15th place and an All-American honorable mention. Yovanovich opened up the relay with a personal-best 23.83 breaststroke split.
Cheng – a 2020 Tokyo Olympian for the United Kingdom – scored 291.40 in the 10-meter diving competition to secure an All-American honorable mention and 10th place, matching her 2025 NCAA finish.
“She (Cheng) is a professional through and through,” Cordry said. “Eden had Olympic rings to her name before she had UCLA to her name, and so she is somebody with world-class professionalism and experience and ability, and to have her come to this meet and show up and be so consistent year over year and reach those high goals and put herself in the top echelon of the spot over and over again – it is really important.”
The team entered the season with a goal of going top-20 at the NCAAs – an accomplishment Cordry said would require a big step up to reach. Murphy and Cheng, she added, made a significant difference in achieving that goal.
And as far as Murphy’s NCAA career went, all good things came in time.
“I’ve known that I’ve been capable of this,” Murphy said. “It feels very, very good to achieve that, and to have these goals that I’ve had since freshman year.”
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