Virginia Freshman Claire Tuggle Enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Virginia freshman Claire Tuggle at the moment on the NCAA switch portal, signaling his intention to probably depart the Cavaliers after his first season on this system. Earlier than stepping into the subject, it is extremely necessary to notice, as all the time, that an athlete getting into the switch portal doesn’t imply that they need to switch colleges, it merely implies that they’re speaking with totally different colleges and coaches.

Nevertheless, it seems like Tuggle is planning to depart Virginia, who simply yesterday received her third consecutive NCAA Ladies’s Championship title. SwimSwam reached out to Tuggle about her title showing on the portal, and Tuggle replied, “I have been actually proud of my swimming expertise in UVA and I like the coaches and the staff, however resulting from some private points it is time for me to switch.” . I am excited for the following episode and will likely be perpetually grateful to UVA.”

Tuggle’s look on the portal comes after he went solo to the NCAAs this weekend as a substitute of the UVA. Tuggle swam quick sufficient to qualify for the NCAAs this season, however was unnoticed of UVA’s 17-athlete roster resulting from roster limits for the occasion.

Whereas Tuggle’s time in Virginia appears to be coming to an finish, this season has been a pivotal one in his profession. Tuggle hit the scene when he was very younger and blew everybody within the swimming neighborhood when he hit 1:44.96 200 freestyle and 4:41.36 500 freestyle at simply 13 years previous. Sadly, Tuggle would quickly swim to a protracted plateau. Coming to UVA this fall, Tuggle’s private finest occasions within the 200 free and 500 had been their efficiency in March 2018, after they had been nonetheless 13 years previous.

After years of seeing no enchancment in these occasions, Tuggle shortly noticed a change of tempo in Virginia, swam within the 200 on the Cavalier Invitational in early January with a lifetime better of 1:44.81. Swimming broke his first private document on the occasion in almost 5 years. He additionally swam private data of 23.64 in 50 freestyle and 48.99 in 100 freestyle on the Cavalier invitation. Tuggle went on to document one other lifetime-best couple on the ACC Championships with 4:40.41 within the 500 freestyle and 16:15.91 within the 1650 freestyle.

This is a chart exhibiting Tuggle’s private data in freestyle occasions earlier than he got here to UVA and after one season with the staff:

As for the place Tuggle may need to go, nobody can guess. Something we will give you is simply wild hypothesis, but it surely’s price noting that Tuggle is from California so maybe he’ll need to switch to a spot nearer to residence.