AURORA | The Smoky Hill girls swim team exceeded its strong season in the water with its performance in the classroom during the 2025-26 season.

Coach Scott Cohen’s Buffaloes — seventh place at the Class 5A state meet in February — finished with a sparkling 3.921 Grade Point Average that ranked 11th in the country among teams that applied and achieved Gold Scholar status from the National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association, which released its nationwide list Thursday.

Since 2002-03, NISCA has recognized boys and girls teams from across the country with 12 or more members for elite academic achievement and this season 120 girls teams were honored and broken down into Gold (3.75 or higher), Silver (3.5 or higher) and Bronze (3.34 or higher).

Bolstered by the presence of four Academic All-Americans in the Class of 2026 — Kaiya Ricketson, Greta Smolenski, Mia Waleski and Cameryn Walkup (see story, here) — Smoky Hill was the only Colorado girls team to make the Gold category, while D’Evelyn earned a 3.741 GPA to garner Silver status.

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Smoky Hill has won Gold Scholar team awards for three straight seasons and six times overall, including the 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons as well.

Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports

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