Men's Swimming and Diving Outlook
10/7/2003 6:35:44 PM | Swimming / Diving
It's October and that means it is time for the Syracuse swimmers and divers to jump in the water and begin another college swimming and diving campaign. The team has actually been practicing since the beginning of September, but official, competitive meets get underway during the tenth month of the year.
SU always looks at its season in two parts. The first half is a 10-week session that culminates at the Nike Cup Championship at the University of North Carolina at the end of November. At this event, some of the top teams in the country congregate to test their times and dives. Then from January until the end of February, the team works to shave seconds off their times and add points to their scores in order to perform their life-time bests at The BIG EAST Conference Championship and hopefully beyond.
Once again, The BIG EAST Conference Championship meet will be held at the Nassau County Aquatics Center in Long Island. The dates this year are Feb. 19-21, 2004. That will also be the site for the NCAA Men's Championship on March 25-27.
Syracuse has three male divers who qualified for the NCAA Zone Diving Competition in Buffalo last season. It was the first time the Orangemen sent divers to the zone meet since 1995-96 when Brad Ripps qualified. This year's trio will look to improve upon their performances from a year ago during the second week of March when the NCAA zone competition is held at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
This year's schedule is a little different than in the recent past. SU will hold back-to-back meets on Oct. 17 at Colgate, and Oct. 18 at home against St. Bonaventure. The team will then travel to Rutgers for a challenging two-day invitational. On Nov. 1, Syracuse hosts defending men’s conference champion Pittsburgh in the first BIG EAST dual-meet of the season. Then, it is on to the Nike Cup three weeks later.
In January, the team travels to Puerto Rico for winter training. They prepare for the conference championship with three league dual-meets in January (West Virginia, at Connecticut and at Seton Hall) and then engage in a final tune-up at Villanova on Feb. 7. A new twist this year is after the BIG EAST Championship on Feb. 19-21, Syracuse swimmers and divers will have the opportunity to advance to the ECAC Championship at Pittsburgh on Feb. 26-28.
ORANGEMEN PERSONNEL
"To compete on the conference level and beyond, we have guys like Spencer Raymond, Josh Scott and Mike Anstrom,” said head coach Lou Walker who is in his 25th season coaching the Orangemen. "The kids who scored at the BIG EAST meet who are returning clearly have the ability to do that. We took a group of four guys and they finished ninth in the relay at the U.S. nationals. We add a guy like Lukasz Boral, who has international experience. He’s a European junior champion in the breaststroke, so we’re adding a kid with international experience. We didn’t have any seniors last year, so we didn’t lose any point scorers."
The men will be led by second-year captains Raymond and senior Steve Polucha, and junior tri-captain Anstrom. Raymond is a returning BIG EAST point scorer in the breaststroke and sprint freestyle events. Last year, he set a Webster Pool record in the 100 breaststroke, placed third in the same event at the Nike Cup (55.97), and then topped that time at the BIG EAST Championship with a time of 55.95 to finish sixth. He was part of SU's ninth-place 400-meter medley relay team at the ConocoPhillips National Swimming Championship in Indianapolis.
Anstrom has been a contributer at the BIG EAST Championship in each of his first two seasons. He will look to improve upon his time in the 100 butterfly and sprint freestyle events. As a sophomore, Anstrom was eighth in the 100 butterfly with a personal-best time of 49.23. He also scored in the 50 freestyle (20.64) and the 100 freestyle (45.67). Along with Raymond and current sophomores Ryan Caponera and Rob Persico, Anstrom was a member of SU's 400-meter medley relay team that placed ninth at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis with a time of 3:56.91.
Walker pointed to Boral as his top rookie men's swimmer. A native of Poznan, Poland, Boral, who goes by "Luk", won the National Senior Championship in the 100 and 200 breaststroke. He was the European Junior Champion in the 200 breaststroke his junior year. He also competed in the World University Games in Daegu, South Korea. His top time in the 100 breaststroke is 1:03.08, while his best time in the 200 breaststroke is 2:13.58.
“You add into the mix some new guys, led by Luk, who’s our top incoming guy. He’s world-class. He’s somebody who could have gone anywhere. That’s going to elevate the other guys around him. So, it’s a very optimistic look for the guys.”
Adding to Walker's optimism is the return of Scott, and a talented group of sophomores who all contributed at the conference meet as freshmen, including Devon Ackroyd, Ryan Caponera, Rob Persico and Bobby Schelling.
Scott is one of Syracuse's most versatile and consistent performers. He set personal-best times last year in the 500-yard freestyle (4:31.84), the 200-yard freestyle (1:39.44) and the 200-yard backstroke (1:49.88), all of which placed him among the conference's top 16 swimmers in those events at the conference meet. He aided SU's relay teams in the 400 medley, the 800 freestyle and the 400 freestyle.
Ackroyd made great strides during the season last year and it culminated at the conference championship where he posted his best time in the 400 individual medley (4:03.78).
Caponera, who is still relatively new to the sport, qualified for the conference meet in just his first season as an Orangeman. He swam the 50 and 100 freestyle events and helped SU to a sixth-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. He also advanced to Indianapolis to swim with the Orangemen's 400-meter medley relay squad at the ConocoPhillips National Swimming Championship.
Persico proved himself an asset in the 200-yard backstroke, where he scored points for SU by finishing 13th in the BIG EAST finals with a career-best time of 1:50.00. He also contributed in the 800 freestyle relay (fifth place), and the 400 freestyle relay (eighth place).
Schelling swam the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 and 200 backstroke events at the BIG EAST Championship. He was also part of four SU relays.
Distance freestyler Pat Mugavin, a sophomore, showed great promise during his first season at SU. He got a taste of the conference meet in the preliminaries of the 200, 500 and 1,650 freestyle races. He also helped the Orangemen's 800 freestyle relay finish fifth with a time of 6:44.07.
Junior Gustavo Kertzscher and sophomores Mike Gavan and Geoff Harrison will all be attempting to return to the BIG EAST Championship and improve upon their times and finishes this year.
“Once again, if you look at all the places our kids come from, it’s not New York, New Jersey,” Walker said. “I mean our freshman class, we have Poland and Puerto Rico and Texas, Kansas and Michigan. The length and breadth of our team really is representative of the whole U.S. and around the world. It’s a little unique for us. We really are from all over the world. We really do get out there and recruit kids from all around the world.”
Six divers, including one newcomer, will compete for Syracuse during the 2003-04 season.
“We’re coming off a year where all three of our male divers qualified for the NCAA Zone meet," said head diving coach Jeff Keck. "I think this year, our guys may have a chance to move on from there. The hard part is just getting to the NCAA Zone meet the first time. Now they know they can do it. They know what to expect. It’s their inspiration to compete better.”
Ricky Rodriguez is the lone senior on the squad. He is one of the three who will be looking to get back to the NCAA Zone meet.
"Rick can finish dives," Keck said.
Sophomores Tony Campagna and Dewey Schultz are right there at the same level. Both know what to expect after competing at the NCAA Zone meet in Buffalo last season. They also hope to perform better at the conference championship.
"Rick and Tony were in Syracuse all summer, working out," Keck explained. "Rick worked in the geology department and Tony is from Liverpool, but they were both in the pool, working on dives all summer."
“Tony is a really good spinner," Keck said. "He spins so fast, that his challenge is to learn to stop the dives. Dewey probably has the most potential out of the three. He just needs to focus. He can rip. He showed a lot of courage coming back from an injury last year and he’s still doing tough dives. He has showed no signs of trepidation.”
All three of the men scored points for Syracuse and on any given day, at any given meet, any of the three are capable of finishing first.
"They beat each other all the time," Keck said. "Our depth on the men's side is very good. We just needed experience last year, and this year we have it."
SU's newcomer, Jeremy Thornton, is from Manchester, Conn. He will take this year to learn what it takes to compete at the level of the BIG EAST. A trombone player for the SU marching band, Thornton brings some new talents to the squad.
“Jeremy Thornton will be learning everything," Keck said. "He never dove three-meter in high school, so he needs to learn those dives.”
Our big dual-meet this year will be the Pittsburgh meet here at home. They have some very good divers who we’ll be able to test ourselves against and see where we are.”
