NEWBERG, Ore. -- Last season, the George Fox swim team surprised some people.

This year, they're ready to prove it's not a fluke.

In the 2025-26 season, the Bruin women's swim team recorded their highest finish in program history, a fifth-place effort — improving three spots from the year prior. That impressive improvement was enough to earn Natalie Turner the NWC Women's Swimming Coach of the Year award. While the men finished eighth, they still showed great improvement. 

Despite all the records, the Bruin coach isn't dwelling on the past. She's focused on the pool.

"The beautiful thing about swimming is that it's an individual sport as much as it's a team sport," Turner said. "We get to focus on training both aspects, and we get to enjoy all aspects of that. We want our entire team to be competitive. We also want to see success for our swimmers, and we want to enjoy this entire process."

It would be unwise to get five whole paragraphs in without mentioning Gabbie Patti. The do-it-all swimmer had one of the best freshman seasons in not just program history, but Northwest Conference history. Patti won every event she competed in and set multiple NWC records en route to being named NWC Rookie of the Meet and NWC Co-Swimmer of the Meet. 

She would go on to qualify for three events in the 2026 NCAA Championships (50 free, 100 back, and 200 back), becoming just the second GFU swimmer to qualify for the meet. 

"Last year, [Gabbie] led a lane because she was a talented athlete," Turner said. "This year, she is leading a lane because she's a leader. She knows how to get in the pool and do the sets and knows what's expected of her. It makes me really excited to see what she's going to be able to do, and it just brings everybody up around her."

Patti is part of an impressive sophomore class. On the women's side, All-NWC athlete and talented sprint freestyler Donna Talmadge, dependable Leah Meeuwsen, Clara Green, and Kuah Weeber make up the class. Just two sophomores sit on the men's side, Parker Kiniry and Jack Orsat.

On the other side, the senior group is one that Turner has just enjoyed being around — and the team agrees. For the men's side, the group voted Strom Nordeng, Wyatt Greene, and Cody Moreland captains.

"Usually captains are a little bit more spread out between classes," Turner said, "knowing that three senior captains were picked, it shows our swimmers wanted all three of these men to be their team captains. They're really great leaders and great guys."

The three captains are joined by one of three Grays on the roster in Jared Gray, Tobin Jansen, and Christopher McLellan. For the women, Heidi Gray, captain Zoey Stapelman, and a pair of All-NWC Second Teamers in Jesse Urback and Ellie Hoover are the four  seniors on the team. 

" I just truly love our seniors this year, Turner said. "They all love to swim together. They all love to be in groups together. They are on the blocks together racing each other every time, even though they swim different strokes. It is so fun to watch them interact, and they bring such a liveliness and leadership to the pool deck."

That leadership has been key: Fox welcomes eight freshmen to the program for the 2026-27 season. Three women (Peyton Atkins, Leah Bernard, Milina Whipps, and Erika Emig) and five men (Kisen Goforth, Mitchell Greay, Brody Hollis, Isaac Janbay, and Liam Juvan) enter ready to make an impact on the team. 

And make an impact they have. Thanks in part to the seniors' leadership, whether it is talented sprinters in Atkins and Bernard, the third Gray sibling in Mitchell, or an all-around IMer in Janbay, these freshmen have made themselves right at home on deck — though they might need to be jokingly reminded sometimes that they are still freshmen.

"This group has  jumped in the lanes so quickly." Turner said, "They've worked really hard right alongside their teammates to the point where it's like it doesn't feel like they're freshmen."

Rounding out the roster for the new season is a group of juniors with a lot to prove. While three seniors make up the men's captains list, one junior, Belinda Stoye, joins fellow captain Stapelman (who graduates one year earlier) as captains on the women's side. The two are joined by another junior in Claire Kuiper, who returns to the pool after an injury sidelined her for much of her sophomore season.

For the men, 1650 freestyle record holder Micah Hugo is the lone junior. Hugo's time at the 2025 NWC Championships of 17:10.13 broke the former mile record. He went on to earn top-10 NWC finishes in the 800 free relay and the 1650 in 2026.

In the 2025-26 season, the team had several unique meets throughout the season, ranging from a "Mystery Meet against Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound to a Quad-Meet featuring Pacific, Lewis & Clark, and Southwestern Oregon CC. That's not the case for 2026-27.

Instead, the Bruins will set their sights on Boise, Idaho, where the NWC Championships will be held for the second straight season. GFU has eight dual meets against conference foes, along with the annual Bruin Invite in November, to prepare themselves for the conference championship. 

"I think we were a little bit more competitive last year than many thought we were going to be," Turner said, " And even though we knew we had a lot of talent coming in, we want to make sure that we are preparing all of that talent to race really well in February. And this schedule helps us do that this year."

Beyond the results that surprised the NWC in the 2026 championships, this group just loves to be together. It's been evident to the coaching staff throughout the start of the season — and a midseason winter break trip to San Diego and Coronado Island won't hurt the team's camaraderie, either. 

" Our swimmers work incredibly hard while they're down there," Turner said. "They're doing dry land for an hour a day. They're in the water for hours a day. They're doing yoga on top of that. But at the same time, they're just getting to enjoy being together. That's the only time that they're together that there's no homework, there's no classes. They truly just get to spend that time bonding as a team."

That bonding, work in the offseason, and work already on the year will be put to the test as the Bruins jump into the pool on Friday, October 30, against Pacific.

And they'll get back to surprising people yet again.