Lake Forest College women's swimming and diving landed third in the Midwest Conference (MWC) preseason coaches' poll, collecting 62 points and one first-place vote.

The MWC announced the rankings Thursday, Oct. 1, two days before the season opens Saturday, Oct. 3. Grinnell College, winner of five consecutive conference titles, topped the poll with 80 points and eight of 10 first-place votes. Newcomer Luther College placed second with 65 points.

The Foresters return four all-conference swimmers who powered the program to a third-place finish at the 2026 MWC Championships. Isabella Rozenbergas, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, headlines the group as the two-time defending MWC Women's Swimmer of the Year. She won three individual events and swam on three winning relays at the conference meet in February, posting a school and conference record 2:13.13 in the 200-butterfly.

Rozenbergas went on to compete in three events at the 2026 NCAA Division III Championship Meet in March and earned CSCAA First Team Scholar All-American honors, according to Lake Forest College athletics.

Audrey Kilmer matched that production. The 2024 MWC Swimmer of the Year won four individual event titles at the conference championships. Her 100-freestyle split of 52.62 seconds on the 400-freestyle relay set a Lake Forest program record. Joss Hoffman and Valeria Welk round out the returning all-conference core. All four combined on relay squads that won the 200-freestyle, 400-freestyle and 800-freestyle relays at the MWC meet.

First-year head coach Eric Skelly takes over a program that produced 11 event wins and three school records at the 2026 conference championships. Skelly spent 15 years leading the University of Cumberlands program in Williamsburg, Kentucky, where his women's teams won 14 consecutive Mid-South Conference titles. He was named NAIA Women's Coach of the Year in 2013 and 2018. Zoe Rebol, who guided the Foresters as interim head coach during the 2025-26 season and was named MWC Women's Coach of the Year, stays on as an assistant.

"I look forward to leveraging those roots to build a perennial power in the Midwest Conference," Skelly said in April when Lake Forest announced his hire.

St. Norbert College (61 points) and Milwaukee School of Engineering (55 points) rounded out the top five. The season concludes at the 2027 MWC Championships, hosted by Grinnell from Feb. 18 through Feb. 21.