First NCAA Point is Latest Milestone for UC San Diego’s Chloe Braun
Chloe Braun has steadily worked her way through the firsts for UC San Diego’s women’s swimming and diving program.
Last year, as a junior, she became the first Triton to make the NCAA Division I Championships, in the first year of eligibility for the meet in elevating from Division II. She finished 20th in the 100 breaststroke and 50th in the 200 breast.
A year later, Braun was one of three UC San Diego swimmers in attendance at NCAAs at Georgia Tech. This time, it came with a point scored by Braun in the 100 breast, the senior finishing 16th in her lone individual swim on Thursday morning.
“It feels awesome,” Braun said Friday at Atlanta’s McAuley Aquatics Center. “I work hard every day to do things like this, so it’s awesome to finally get to have it. Last year, it was the first time we went to NCAA, so that was very special. And now having the first point was also very special, because I missed it by so little last year.”
Braun said she didn’t carry big expectations into her college career. The native of Toulouse and French junior national teamer arrived midway through their probationary period of NCAA Championship ineligibility. She emerged as a conference champ in the 100 breast at the MPSF Championships, then the Big West Scholar Athlete of the Year as a junior. Her swim in prelims of the Big West Championships at 59.14 was both an NCAA A cut and the conference record.
When Braun finished 20th at NCAAs in 59.09 last year, the goal was clearly set at returning to NCAAs and cracking the top 16. Any other year, that would’ve meant a B final swim. At the very least this year, it meant scoring a point for her team.
Braun entered seeded 20th with a time of 58.79. She was slightly off the pace in 58.98, but jumped up four spots anyway.
“I never really thought of special goals,” Braun said. “I also didn’t really know how things worked coming here. We’re coming a long way.”
Braun wasn’t alone at this meet. Eva Boehlke and Asia Kozan swam the 200 individual medley. Kozan swam the 200 free. None of them were close to scoring. But the dynamic of having company undoubtedly enriched the moment for Braun.
“It is so much better,” she said. “It was fun to do it by myself, but it’s nothing compared to sharing that with your best friends, your teammates, training with them every day. It feels even better to get to share that together.”
San Diego has swimming history. The men’s team finished runner-up at the NCAA Division II Championships in 2011 and 2012 to Drury. It finished second at Division III Champs seven times from 1989-98.
Both programs made the jump from D3 to D2 after the 2000 season. The Triton women finished third that first year in Division II in 2001, then weren’t worse than fourth until 2014.
So Braun has a foundation to build upon. But what she’s doing has advanced it to a new level. And she hopes it feeds forward.
“What’s really nice with this team is that we all learn from each other,” she said. “And I think I have a tendency to be very goal-oriented, and my teammates are a lot more go with the flow, having fun with what we’re doing. So that helps me a lot. And I think I can probably help a little bit more by setting goals that can be achieved.”
.jpeg "2026 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championship - logo"){kind=logo}