Which swimmers, teams stood out at 2026 Southwest Ohio Classic?

The Southwest Ohio Classic is a Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend tradition in Cincinnati. It's billed as the largest high school swimming meet of its kind in the country and has produced some of the greatest swimming moments in this city's history.

The 2026 edition was no different. Over two days at 11 different sites, swimmers and divers worked to continue their impressive seasons while also using the weekend as a tune-up for the fast-approaching postseason.

Here are five of the biggest storylines from this year's meet. Complete results can be found here.

Kings senior Maya Schweikert set for postseason swimming dominance

The Kings senior and Georgia signee recorded one of the greatest performances in meet history, breaking four meet records, two of which she set last year.

She won the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard butterfly in back-to-back fashion on Saturday, but had a little more time in between her 200-yard individual medley and 200-yard backstroke victories on Sunday.

"I was just thinking about my training and what I've been training for, and trying to keep my technique and strategy together and do what I've been practicing. I think that I executed that really well," Schweikert said.

She is the two-time defending Division I 100-yard backstroke state champion and won the 100-yard butterfly in 2025 but may switch up her postseason regimen this time around. She called the individual medley a mental challenge but is starting to like that event.

"Honestly, I do better with no expectation. It's kind of just getting in and swimming. So keeping that up and not having the expectations, just practicing what I've been practicing. You have no idea what you're capable of until you do it," Schweikert said.

Additional multi-event winners include St. Xavier's Chase Grisi, Mason's Bella Teply and Dana Fairbanks, Roger Bacon's Reese Reilly, Milford's Brady Campbell, Elder's Reese Morgan and Springfield Shawnee's Madi Lee. All except Campbell, Morgan and Lee are seniors, showcasing just how deep this year's senior class is. Expect to see the majority of those names atop the podium in Canton in the last weekend of February.

"We have a lot of great athletes in our senior class this year and it's always exciting to see everybody swim fast and show what Cincinnati can do as a whole," Reilly said.

The Roger Bacon senior and Duke signee is the two-time defending DII 100-yard breaststroke winner and set a school record in the 100-yard butterfly this season. She missed the meet record by one-tenth of a second but won her second event of the weekend after claiming the 200-yard breaststroke on Saturday.

"Just a few things that I could clean up, like my walls. But overall, I think it was a good swim and that the rest of the season has a lot of potential, too," Reilly said.

Can Ursuline girls replicate third-place finish at 2025 state meet?

The race for the girls team title was tight at the top as Mason won with 445 points, St. Ursula recorded its third runner-up finish in four years with 414 points and Ursuline came in third with 400 points.

"We want to continue the momentum moving into the end of the season, but it's so hard to tell what the future holds. We see two of the best teams right here, right now, so it's a really good gauge to see what what we're getting into and what we have to play with," head coach Grace Seibert said.

The Lions also took third place at the 2025 DI state meet with 169 points, just 26 behind Mason. It was their best finish since they claimed back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014. They were bolstered by now-seniors Melia Eckman, Alyssa Uhlman and Grier Gordon, and junior Norah Smyth winning the 400-yard freestyle relay but have several key contributors making their way through the ranks.

While Eckman won the 50-yard freestyle, freshman Kaia Pohlmeyer took second place in the 50-yard breaststroke. Junior Maisie Moran is also a promising backstroke and individual medley swimmer.

"Even though we have a lot of seniors, I think we have a lot of depth that can help carry us through," Seibert said.

Brady Campbell looking for more history at Milford

Campbell became Milford's first swimming state champion when he claimed the 2025 DI 50-yard freestyle. He also swam on the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays that placed third, the highest relay finishes in school history.

At the 2026 Southwest Ohio Classic, he won the 50- and 100-yard freestyles, the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard butterfly. The breaststroke is his newest stroke but as one of the top swimmers in the state, he caught on to it naturally.

"I kind of just got into it last year at our conference meet. I found out I have a passion or a liking for it and ever since, I've just been working on it in practice," Campbell said.

Still just a junior, he said one of his events in the postseason will definitely be the butterfly, where he was the 2025 state runner-up. In the next few weeks, he will explore his options for which freestyle distance he will contest.

"This season's been great for me. I've opened a bunch of doors for those different distances. For the freestyle, it's still kind of up in the air. The 50, 100 and 200, they all have great competition and I've just been getting better at all three," Campbell said.

Mason boys quickly on the rise

Following in the footsteps of the girls program, the Comets boys team showed over the weekend that it should contend for a second straight top five placement at the state meet.

Mason actually led St. Xavier in the team standings heading into the final event, but a Bomber win in the 400-yard freestyle relay saw them keep their Southwest Classic undefeated streak alive. The margin between St. Xavier and Mason was one of the closest in meet history, with the Bombers winning with 703 points to Mason's 696.5.

"We've been super excited ever since state last year. We've had a goal, since a lot of us are seniors and juniors, to make this year as special as possible," Mason senior Aidan Jansen said.

Last year's state team consisted of five juniors (Jansen, Ethan Tu, Robert Wall, Liam Clark, Yassin Ghobril) and five sophomores (Mulenga Cole, Noah Kirk, Samyak Ramchandre, Max Vazquez, Austin Zhong). All made valuable contributions over the weekend. Even sophomore Jake Xu, who swam in the 500-yard freestyle prelims as a freshman, has improved. He won the Southwest Classic 1,650-yard freestyle in 16:11.42, overtaking St. X's Alex Nixon midway through the race.

"We've got a lot of events with a lot of guys that are really good, and even with the four person limit on the lineup, it's gonna be hard because we've got so many people who are so good," Jansen said.

Nine Southwest Ohio Classic meet records broken

The two finals sessions saw some of the fastest times in meet history as seven meet records were broken in Saturday night's finals session and two more fell on Sunday night, including the oldest record in meet history.

• Girls 200-yard freestyle: Michelle Dean, Bellbrook, 1:47.57 (previously set by Finneytown's Buffy Kreiger with a time of 1:48.64 in 1985)
• Boys 200-yard freestyle: Chase Grisi, St. Xavier, 1:36.39 (Jason Zhao, Indian Hill, 1:37.41, 2025)
• Boys 50-yard freestyle: Brady Campbell, Milford, 20.06 seconds (Aaron Sequira, Walnut Hills, 20.18 seconds, 2020)
• Girls 500-yard freestyle: Bella Teply, Mason, 4:51.01 (Amanda Smith, Indian Hill, 2007, and Zoe Thatcher, Mason, 2013, 4:53.1)
• Boys 200-yard freestyle relay: St. Xavier, 1:21.47 (St. Xavier, 1:22.42, 2017)
• Girls 100-yard backstroke: Maya Schweikert, Kings, 53.23 seconds (Schweikert, 53.28 seconds, 2025)
• Girls 100-yard butterfly: Maya Schweikert, Kings, 53.51 seconds (Ella Jo Piersma, Seven Hills, 55.1 seconds, 2022)
• Girls 200-yard individual medley: Maya Schweikert, Kings, 2:00.41 (Jenny Forster, Centerville, 2:01.15, 2005)
• Girls 200-yard backstroke: Maya Schweikert, Kings, 1:55.33 (Schweikert, 1:56.93, 2025)

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Records fall, postseason prep begins at 2026 Southwest Ohio Classic