Reviewing Our 2026 Junior Pan Pacs Roster Projection
-
Re: Simulating the 2026 Junior Pan Pacs Roster: An Unofficial Look at Who the Priority Rules Point To
The official 2026 Junior Pan Pacific Championships roster is out, so it's a good time to check our projection against it — where we got it right, where we didn't, and why.
The Scorecard
Women: 14 of 20 projected selections matched the official roster.
- Projected but not official: Rylee Erisman, Brinkleigh Hansen, Sydney Schoeck, Charlotte Crush, Alex Siegel, Emily Wolf
- Official but missed by projection: Paige Downey, Ellie Clarke, Kennedi Southern, Vivienne Zangaro, Lane Francis, Mia Buff
Men: 19 of 20 matched.
- Projected but not official: Cullen Kahl
- Official but missed by projection: Ellis Crisci
The Known Issue
Our model builds projections from final time rankings, filtered by age eligibility — it doesn't currently know which heat a swimmer actually competed in. That's a meaningful gap, because selection isn't purely time-based: only athletes who actually swim in the 18-U final are eligible for consideration in that event. A swimmer can be fast enough on paper and still be ineligible, for reasons our current data doesn't capture.
We've traced most of the women's misses back to two variants of that same root cause:
1. Already on a Senior Pan Pacs Team.
Rylee Erisman (Pan Pacs) and Brinkleigh Hansen (open water) were both already on senior rosters heading into this meet, which makes them ineligible for Junior Pan Pacs regardless of how fast they swam here. Our model has no way to check senior-team status yet, so it projected them anyway.2. Opted out of the 18-U final entirely.
Charlotte Crush swam directly in the Open final in every event we checked, with no record of racing an 18-U final all week — meaning she was never actually in consideration for a Junior Pan Pacs spot, whatever her time-only ranking suggested. Sydney Schoeck's results follow the same pattern in the events we've checked so far, though we haven't confirmed it across her full event list yet.The Boys' Side: Fully Resolved
The one men's miss came down to a head-to-head Priority-3 comparison, not a data gap:
- Ellis Crisci, 400 Free: 3:50.89 vs. 3:42.43 Medal Standard = +3.806%
- Cullen Kahl, 200 IM: 2:00.28 vs. 1:55.80 Medal Standard = +3.869%
Luka Mijatovic opted out of the 400 Free 18-U final, and Crisci was actually 2nd place in that final. Crisci ended up marginally closer to the Medal Standard than Kahl, which gave him the last Priority-3 spot. Straightforward once you have the actual final results — our projection just didn't know about Mijatovic's opt-out.
Still Open
After the known-issue cases above, the remaining women's differences are:
- Projected: Alex Siegel, Sydney Schoeck, Kayla Han, Mena Boardman
- Official: Kennedi Southern, Vivienne Zangaro, Grace Koenig-Song, Mia Buff
We haven't traced these back to a specific cause yet. We'll follow up once we've worked through them. In the meantime, this is exactly the kind of gap that tells us where to improve the model — tracking actual 18-U vs. Open final participation, and senior-team status, instead of relying on time rankings alone.
Official 2026 Junior Pan Pacs Roster
Women
First Name Last Name Club Events Gabi Brito Beach Cities Alpha 100 FR, 50 FL, 100 FL, 50 BK Sadie Buckley Nations Capital Swim Club 200 IM, 400 IM Mia Buff Greater Toledo Aquatic Club 50 FL Abi Burke T2 Aquatics 200 FR, 400 FR Ellie Clarke Carmel Swim Club 200 BK Audrey Derivaux Jersey Wahoos 100 FL, 200 FL, 200 BK, 200 IM, 400 IM Paige Downey Gold Medal Swim Club 800 FR, 1500 FR Lane Francis NOVA of Virginia 100 BK Kayda Geyer Mecklenberg Swim Association 200 BR Aria Grossenbach Patriot Aquatic Club 100 FR Sydney Hardy Sarasota Sharks 200 FR Zara Kocak Excel Aquatics 200 FL Grace Koenig-Song NASA Wildcat Aquatics 50 BR, 100 BR Kate McKinnon Aquawolves Swim Team 50 FR Zayda Miehl Corvallis Aquatic Team 800 FR, 1500 FR Maddie Moreth Valparaiso Swim Club 50 BR, 100 BR Alyssa Sagle Nations Capital Swim Club 50 BK, 100 BK Kennedi Southern Lakeside Aquatic Club 50 FL Kaidy Stout Greensboro Swimming Association 200 BR Vivienn Zangaro Long Island Aquatic Club 400 FR Men
First Name Last Name Club Events Jordan Ragland Life Time Northern California 100 FR Mike Rice Mecklenberg Swim Association 100 FR Kai Joyner Rochester Swim Club 200 FR Luka Mijatovic Pleasanton Seahawks 200 FR, 800 FR, 1500 FR Ewan Dalrymple Columbia Swimming 200 FL Wilson York Lakeside Swim Team 200 BR Davis Jackson TAC Titans 50 BK, 100 BK Jake Lloyd Central Ohio Aquatics 50 FL Yi Zheng Carmel Swim Club 400 IM Charlie Cancelmo Seattle Metropolitan Aquatic Club 100 FL Ian Call Nashville Aquatic Club 50 BR, 100 BR Ethan Bathala Bolles School Sharks 50 BK Trent Allen Carmel Swim Club 400 FR Ty Thomas River City Aquatics 100 BK Jackson Hartzler Cypress Fairbanks Swim Club 200 IM Brody Chandler Sierra Marlins Swim Team 50 FR Andrew Eubanks The Dolphins Swim Team 50 BR, 100 BR Anthony Dornoff La Mirada Armada Swim Team 400 IM David Sammons SwimMAC Carolina 200 FL Ellis Crisci Tsunami Swim Team of Kansas City 400 FR, 1500 FR
