College swimming: Medina's Brayden Morford wins another national title at Carnegie Mellon

Carnegie Mellon junior Brayden Morford didn't even realize he had broken his school record in the 100-yard backstroke at the NCAA Division III National Championships. In fact, it even took him a second to figure out he had repeated as champion. "I touched the wall, and I couldn't exactly see where I was within the field," he said. "I pulled my goggles up, looked at the board and then I just saw the one next to my name. That's all I was looking for. I didn't even look at the time." Moments later he saw the time of 46.29, besting his previous school record of 46.61. "After I celebrated and got out of the pool, I started walking towards the warm-down pool," Morford said. "I was like 'Oh, that's a nice time.'" The 2023 Gazette MVP and Medina native entered the meet knowing there would be a different kind of pressure after winning the 100 back and 200 IM as a sophomore. He felt remaining hungry was crucial if he wanted to stand atop the podium again. "There's definitely that expectation from my team and other teams," Morford said. "I think the key to repeating was just still going at it with the same amount of hunger as I had the first time and still needing to want it just as bad and showing that same amount of fight and competitive desire." That hunger has led Morford to 17 first-team All-America finishes in his three years of college — nine individual and eight relays. He added to his collection this season in the 100 back (1st), 100 butterfly (2nd), 200 individual medley (5th), 200 medley relay (2nd), 800 freestyle relay (5th) and 200 free relay (6th). He also set two school records at the national championships, as the 200 medley relay of Morford, Arnav Deshpande, Aaron Lee and Noah Barnett came home in 1:26.39. Moford now holds school records outright in the 100 fly, 100 back, 200 back, 200 IM, 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay and is tied in the 50 free. Morford sees himself as merely a placeholder. "I kind of see myself as one step in a process," he said. "My coach (Matt Kinney) will talk about the people before me that came in, dropped time and set new standards for the program, and now it's my turn to do the same and raise that bar for the next generations of recruits so they see a new standard. "My greatest hope is that for all the records I have now, I hope that when I graduate and come back in two or three years that my name is wiped off the board. I want to raise that standard and push the people under me to raise it even further." Morford's path is similar to what he did at Medina, only the person he was setting the bar was brother Kellen, who is now at Calvin (Mich.) after following in his brother's footsteps as the 2025 Gazette MVP. "That was such an awesome thing to be able to have all the success, and then getting to watch my younger brother have even more," Brayden Morford said. The brothers saw each other this season when Carnegie Mellon and Calvin met in a dual Jan. 31. They swam against each other in the the 200 free and 200 medley relays but were not in the pool at the same time due to competing on separate legs. "That was a nice reunion. It was fun to catch up and have another meet together," Brayden Morford said. "A lot of our family came out to see that, so that was also nice to see. I look forward to having more meets with him and hopefully seeing him at NCAA (championships) next year." While Morford has had success in the pool, he has also accomplished quite a bit in the classroom, where he is a mechanical engineering major. The balance of school and swimming is something Morford figured out rather quickly. "I think it's just a lot of being as on top of things as you possibly can," Morford said. "I try to do all my assignments right as they come in just to give myself some buffer time so that when I need to travel for a meet or whatever I can afford to drop off the grid for a few days, focus on the meet and come back and not be super behind on my work during the season." That mindset led to him being named a first-team Academic All-American by College Sports Communicators last season with a grade-point average of 3.92. This year's All-Americans will be released later this month. "I knew I was coming to school for school, that's my first priority is to do well in my classes, especially knowing that Carnegie Mellon is known to be particularly rigorous even among engineering schools," Morford said. "I didn't really know what to expect at first, but I just kept doing the same thing I had done in high school — get the work, learn the material, do the assignments, take the exams and just keep on plugging through. There's definitely a new standard to adjust to from high school, but it ended up not being anything that I couldn't handle." Morford is more surprised with how he has transitioned from high school to college. Part of that was dropping his 100 back time from a 50.5 in high school to 47.0 as a college freshman to the current school record of 46.29, a drop of 4.21. "I would say that the pool success is more I would say is more unexpected from where I was in high school," Morford said. "I obviously did fairly well in high school and had a lot of records at Medina and it was fast enough to be recruited here, but that level of time drop (in the 100 back) surprised me." One of the main reasons for the improvement is simply time spent in the weight room. Morford has gone from 6-foot-3, 175 pounds as a high school senior to 6-4 and between 190 and 195 in college. "It's an absolute game-changer," Morford said. "Just having that extra muscle has made a world of difference across the board. We have an excellent strength staff here, so that also helps. And then also just being an environment of people who also want to work really hard at school and also want to succeed in their sport and push themselves in the pool, and just getting a new level of kind of intensity and practice is also super helpful. 'I also think just learning how to kind of mentally handle myself in those big meets and those big moments, just kind of learning how best to prepare myself mentally and getting comfortable with being in those high-pressure situations has also made a really big difference." Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com.