Liberty Clark Breaking Out as Freshman Freestyle Star for Indiana

Liberty Clark Breaking Out as Freshman Freestyle Star for Indiana

In the 2025 NCAA final of the women’s 200 freestyle, Indiana’s Anna Peplowski won a nail-biting race against USC’s Minna Abraham. The two swimmers were tied at two different intermediate splits and never separated by more than a tenth before Peplowski squeezed out a triumph by six hundredths. The win marked Peplowski’s lone individual NCAA title as she capped off a triumphant career for the Hoosiers.

Abraham, meanwhile, returned to USC for her junior season after a summer in which she finished 10th in the 200-meter free while representing Hungary at the World Championships. One of the Trojans’ first competitions of the 2025-26 season came against those same Hoosiers, featuring a newcomer that has already taken Peplowski’s place as the team’s go-to swimmer in the 100 and 200 free.

On that mid-October Friday in Los Angeles, IU freshman Liberty Clark went head-to-head with Abraham in a 200 free showdown strikingly similar to the one seven months earlier between Abraham and Peplowski. Once again, a back-and-forth race came down to less than a tenth, and the Indiana swimmer got the win as Clark announced herself to the college swimming world in dramatic fashion.

In securing the victory at her first intercollegiate competition, Clark finished in 1:42.43, annihilating her previous best time by three seconds. Earlier that day, Clark had won the 50 free in 22.03, a best time by 0.27, and she posted a relay split as fast as 21.62. Similar story in the 100 free at the USC meet, with Clark clocking 47.39 in the individual race and 46.68 in relay duty, another enormous drop from her pre-college best time of 48.48.

Just like that, the Chico, Calif., native listed by Swimcloud as the No. 25 recruit in the class of 2025 is now a national contender in the freestyle events. Her 200-yard time would have placed sixth in the NCAA A-final last year, and with Peplowski and Cal’s Lea Polonsky now graduated, the only returning swimmers to go faster at the national meet are Abraham, Michigan’s Stephanie Balduccini and Virginia’s Anna Moesch. Only 12 women beat Clark’s new personal best all last season, and that list includes swimmers like Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske, Claire Curzan and Caroline Bricker, all individual NCAA champions in other events who hardly ever race the individual event.

Looking at this year’s rankings, Clark finds herself in an elite group. The seven swimmers to go sub-1:43 already include Moesch, Bella Sims, Aimee Canny, Clark, Abraham, Claire Weinstein and Erin Gemmell. The other six on that list all made the trip to the World Championships in Singapore this summer.

In the 100, Clark sits sixth in the country behind Moesch, Camille Spink, Eva Okaro, Huske and Caroline Larson, and she is only seven hundredths behind Peplowski’s best time from last season. All that equals the most astonishing early-season breakout this college season and a huge boost for an Indiana team desperate for talents with Peplowski and top breaststroker Brearna Crawford both gone.

If Clark can continue building on her early-season performances, she has a chance to be a multi-event A-finalist at the NCAA Championships, a co-star next to butterfly and backstroke specialist Miranda Grana. All of Indiana’s relays finished top-10 at last year’s national meet, topping out at fourth place in the 400 medley relay; for this season, Clark plus Grana, Kristina Paegle and Mya Dewitt looks like an extremely effective grouping, although breaststroke remains a serious question. Her presence will be huge for an Indiana team aiming to match last season’s surprising fourth-place national finish.

As for long course, Clark has posted some top-notch swims in that format as well, including best times of 54.41 in the 100-meter free and 2:00.84 in the 200-meter free over the summer. But her early returns at Indiana took things to a new level as she has become a swimmer with potential national impact as soon as this March.