2024-25 G-MAC Women's Swimming and Diving All-Conference Teams

The Hillsdale College women's swimming and diving team got a chance to salute the end of a great career, and celebrate the beginning of two new ones as the Great Midwest Athletic Conference announced their yearly awards on Wednesday afternoon.

After a phenomenal first season for the Chargers, freshman Matilyn Wilhelmsen was named the conference's co-Freshman of the Year, sharing the award with Findlay's Sophia Busby. Wilhelmsen was a star for Hillsdale in 2025, bursting onto the scene in the distance freestyle races and earning three B-cut times in the 500, 1,000 and 1,650 freestyle races in her first four months on campus. The freshman from Arizona was one of last people on the outside looking in to make the 2025 NCAA DII Championships and likely would have made it if not for injuries in the second half of the season that forced her to miss time and limited her to shorter distances at the 2025 G-MAC/MEC Championship meet in February.

Despite those setbacks, Wilhelmsen has a promising future. She's already the second fastest swimmer in Hillsdale College history in the 500 freestyle (5:01.35) and the 1,650 freestyle (17:11.15) and the fourth-fastest in the 1,000 freestyle (10:24.07) despite only competing in those events while healthy for half a collegiate season. She has great potential to build on those achievements with better health and better luck as a sophomore in the 2025-26 campaign. She's Hillsdale's fifth Freshman of the Year in eight G-MAC campaigns since 2017.

As one elite distance swimmer rises for Hillsdale, the Chargers also bid farewell to a legendary career for senior Elise Mason, who earned first-team All-G-MAC honors for the fourth straight season this year. As arguably the greatest distance swimmer in G-MAC history to date, Mason never lost a race in the 500 freestyle, 1,000 freestyle or 1,650 freestyle in four years of G-MAC/MEC Championship meets, winning 12 titles in the events and setting the Hillsdale records that Wilhelmsen will chase over the next three seasons. A 2022 Honorable Mention All-American in the 1,650 freestyle, Mason finished her career by swimming in three events at the 2025 NCAA DII Championships in Indianapolis earlier this month.

Joining Mason as a first-team All-G-MAC honoree is freshman Ella Schafer, who captured the 200 freestyle title at the 2025 G-MAC/MEC Championships for the Chargers in February to earn her spot on the squad. Schafer made a huge impact in the pool in her first season with the Chargers, rewriting the program record in the 200 freestyle and setting a NCAA B-cut time with a 1:51.66 in the event at the Don Kimble Invite in November of 2024 before adding the conference crown in February. A talented athlete, Schafer will look to repeat as G-MAC/MEC Champion next year as a sophomore and potentially earn her first spot in the NCAA DII National Meet as well.