Erika Pelaez, Leah Shackley Launch Into College Careers at NC State
The 2024-25 college season began with the NC State women saying goodbye to two of their three most valuable swimmers from last season. Katharine Berkoff, the winner of three NCAA titles in the 100 backstroke, completed her fifth year of eligibility before winning individual bronze and relay gold medals at the Paris Olympics, while Abby Arens chose to transfer to Texas for her fifth year of eligibility.
This season, the only returning individual NCAA scorers for the Wolfpack woman are Kennedy Noble, the runnerup in the 200-yard event at last year’s NCAA Championships and owner of two top-four finishes at the U.S. Olympic Trials, and distance swimmer Emma Hastings.
Enter two highly-recruited freshman who could blossom as stars right away. It would not be the first time in recent months that an NC State freshman has immediately converted potential into immediate success: Daniel Diehl joined the program in January 2024, and less than six months later, he placed sixth in the 200-meter IM and ninth in the 200-meter free at Olympic Trials.
Leah Shackley — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Now, Erika Pelaez and Leah Shackley have arrived in Raleigh, and the early returns have been stellar. In NC State’s opening dual meet, a two-day showdown against nationally-ranked Arizona State that resulted in a 222-131 victory, Pelaez and Shackley were already the two most valuable swimmers on the team, each posting results that would have scored significant points on the national level last season.
Pelaez began with a 23.48 backstroke split leading off the NC State 200 medley relay. Only two swimmers beat that time at last year’s NCAA Championships. She then won the 200 free in 1:43.14, crushing her previous best time of 1:44.91 from last December while coming up just short of the time required to qualify for the NCAA A-final last year. She anchored NC State’s 400 free relay in 46.76, faster than any Wolfpack swimmer aside from Berkoff swam all of last season.
The next day, Pelaez won the 200 back in 1:50.71, a time which would have placed sixth at the national level last year and her lifetime best by three-quarters of a second. Moreover, she beat Noble by a whopping 1.34 seconds. Her 100 free time of 47.98 is just off what was required for scoring at the national level last year, and she wrapped up the meet with a 21.63 split on the 200 free relay, once again exceeding what any NC State swimmer aside from Berkoff achieved last year.
And yes, Pelaez was only the second-highest-ranked recruit joining the NC State program this year, with her counterpart entering college having earned National High School Swimmer of the Year honors last season and won four gold medals at this year’s Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
In her collegiate debut, Shackley could not match the time drops her teammate posted in the 200-yard events, but she did swim a time of 50.40 in the 100 back, beating the 50.43 that she swam for the National High School record in February. Shackley’s time also beat every performance from last year’s NCAA final outside of the departed Berkoff.
Shackley also recorded solid butterfly performances, medley relay splits of 22.78 and 51.00 plus individual times of 51.47 in the 100 and 1:55.25 in the 200. Expect more to come there, with Shackley having gone as quick as 50.29 in the 100-yard event during her senior year of high school, a time quicker than all but two swimmers would record at the NCAA Championships.
So much for a rebuilding year in the post-Berkoff era. With these two swimmers plus Noble, NC State has three legitimate stars poised to score big points at the NCAA Championships. No, they will not match the high-point of the Braden Holloway era, a runnerup team finish in 2021, but they are well poised to continue a top-10 streak that dates back to 2019.
After Berkoff set the table for what NC State’s women’s program can accomplish on the collegiate and international level, Shackley and Pelaez are poised to lift the Wolfpack even further.