After the intrasquad Blue-Gold meet on Friday, the swimming and diving teams are finishing up preseason preparations before facing University of North Carolina (UNC) Wilmington on Oct. 19. For the meet, both the men's and women's teams were split into two teams – Blue and Gold – with the blue team winning both divisions.
The men look to improve on their fifth place finish at the National Championships, which was the team's 14th straight top-five finish. The women look to defend their National Title for the fifth time in a row.
The team looks to build on its success last year by following the experience of 20 seniors on the team, part of a group Head Coach Jon Howell calls "seasoned veterans."
This is not unusual for the swimming and diving program here at Emory.
"This tradition of strong retention has been a key component to our success over the years," Howell said.
In his 15 years at Emory, Howell's teams have won a combined 30 conference titles and finished outside of the top 10 nationally only once. The team's assistant coaches are Cindy Fontana, Chris Marshall and John Petroff. The diving coach is Alex Kossenkov.
The men's team is returning 24 members from last season, featuring All-Americans Ross Spock, Jake Stephens and Ryan Bass. Other notable returners are former University Athletic Association (UAA) Rookie of the Year Andrew Wilson, who specializes in the breaststroke, and Hayden Baker, the team's butterfly specialist. Freshman Mitchell Cooper impressed at the Blue-Gold meet, winning the 500 and 1000 Free for the Gold team. This balance of experience and talent will be key as the team looks to "improve and move forward each week as a group."
Further supporting Howell's reasoning that strong retention has been part of the team's recipe for success, the women's team returns 26 members from the National Champion winners of the 2012-2013 season. Some notable returners are Nancy Larson, a junior freestyle-sprinter, and senior backstroke specialist Sadie Nennig, who won a total of 11 All-American certificates between the two of them last season. Other returning All-Americans are Megan Beach, Kylie McKenzie, Courtney McDermott, Brooke Woodward, McKenna Newsum-Schoenberg, Michelle York, Nina Zook and Mikayla Carnley. Freshmen Marissa Bergh and Annelise Kowalsky also impressed at the Blue-Gold meet, with Bergh winning the 50 and 200 free for the blue team and Kowalsky taking the 100 breast and 200 Individual Medley for the Gold squad.
The team has a busy schedule stretching from the Blue-Gold meet on Oct. 11 all the way to the National Championships in late March. Their schedule will see them travel to places like Ohio and Chicago and compete against many teams, including Division I opponents such as UNC Wilmington, the University of Alabama, the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech.
Howell explained the benefits of long season.
"Our primary focus right now is on getting better each week," he said. "We should be a solid team by the time championships roll around in March."
He also made it incredibly clear that the team is focusing solely on improvement, saying, "It really is too early for us to focus on end of season goals".
Two of the larger meets the team will participate in this season are the Miami Invitational in Oxford, Ohio, and the UAA Championships, which will be hosted at Emory. Both teams won the conference championship last season, with the men's squad beating second-placed Carnegie Mellon University by more than 500 points. They were led by Bass and Wilson, who both set school records in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke, respectively. The women claimed their 15th consecutive conference title, spurred on by a strong performance from Elizabeth Aronoff, who won the 100-yard breaststroke.
Both teams clearly have a history of excellence, a trend they look to continue beginning this Saturday at UNC Wilmington.
– By Oliver Rockman
Photo courtesy of Emory Athletics
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