Following last winter’s impressive turnaround, highlighted by five broken records, the swimming and diving teams aim to continue the success this year. The men finished sixth in the conference last year with a 7-4 record, and the women’s season ended 6-4-1. Additionally, both teams sent a swimmer to the NCAA Division III Championships.
The men’s representative was Ben Byers ’07, who set University records in the 1650-yard freestyle and 1000-yard freestyle. He was an honorable mention All-American for his eleventh place finish in the 1650 freestyle and strung together 19 straight victories at one point. For the 50-yard freestyle the women sent Joanna Tice ’07, who has set two school records — in the 50 freestyle and the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Both teams have struggled in recent years, but last season’s addition of frosh talent helped the Cards improve their conference standings. Of note, Chris Andrews ’07 was All-NESCAC in the 1000-yard freestyle and just missed qualifying for the NCAAs. Byers, Tice and Andrews all had standout performances, and almost all of last season’s rookies contributed to the speed of the team.
“Basically our entire team is returning with the exception of two seniors,” said co-captain Josh Tanz ’06. “With the strong incoming freshmen class we hope to finish better than last year. Ben Byers will be a key factor, along with Dan Devine [’06], and incoming freshman Jeff Stein [’08] will help us in the breaststroke events.”
Byers is expected to lead the team again and should receive plenty of help, especially from his fellow sophomores. Joining Byers in last year’s frosh accomplishments were butterfly specialist Luke Schleusener ’07 and John Haley ’07. Haley swam the anchor leg in a record-setting 200-yard freestyle relay (1:25.38) with Devine, Tanz and fellow co-captain, Tom Cleveland ’05.
“Last year we were just a few tenths of a second off of qualifying for the NCAAs in the 200 freestyle relay, so we hope to qualify for that,” Tanz said. “All members are returning, and freshman Mike Pepi [’08] could also be helping that relay out.”
Joining a promising group of Cardinal swimmers will be Eric Altneu ’07, who will once again be the Cardinals’ only diver. Altneu displayed enormous potential last year, and diving coach Pat Pyrch was satisfied with his work.
Other strong returners include Sean McClellan ’07 to buoy the backstroke and a number of freestyle swimmers including Cleveland, Devine, Will McCue ’06, Mike Molina ’07 and Zach Webster ’06.
With so many veteran names in the mix, the team hopes to show increased depth this year.
“The team definitely puts a lot into its practices. It’s really that [practices] got bigger; more people decided to swim,” said Sean McClellan ’07.
On the women’s end look for a strong contribution from Alyson Cluck ’07, a specialist in the backstroke and freestyle, who often scored key points in dual meets and is poised to improve greatly this year. The same applies for Jones, who looks to anchor Wesleyan’s butterfly talent and intends to continue to swim the relays as well as she did last year. Amanda Gordon ’07 also showed promise last year, especially in the breaststroke, an event in which the Cards are a bit thin.
Upperclassmen Stephone Lasby ’06, Laurel Daen ’05 and Miriam Jacobs ’05 should all enjoy successful seasons, especially in the long distance events, where Lasby in particular excels. Lasby and Jacobs will also contribute to the butterfly routine. One of last season’s tri-captains, Katy Clark-Spohn ’05, returns and will be one of two freestyle and butterfly multi-stroke swimmers, along with Sarah Myksin ’06, one of this year’s captains. The other captain, Columbus, will again display her abilities in the free and backstroke.
Of the seven incoming female frosh, pay close attention to Amanda Shapiro ’08 and Kate Krems ’08.
Shapiro will be the only three-event swimmer, doing the breaststroke, freestyle and individual medley, making her an extremely valuable and versatile newcomer. Krems will also swim the individual medley, but her best stroke is the butterfly, giving this year’s women a chance to be outstanding in that event.
To pace the diving side of the squad, the women look to a returning Susanna Morrison ’07 and rookie Jessica Houghton ’08.
Credit goes out to fifth-year head coach Mary Bolich for turning the program in the Wesleyan pool into a quality assortment of competitors. At the end of last season Bolich said that she looks forward to working with the new recruits; at that time, several had already committed to Wesleyan. She has worked hard to make this team the best possible, one that could contend for the top of the NESCAC. Bolich feels that if this year’s recruits improve the team as much as the new members from the class of 2007, this could be accomplished within a year.
The Cardinals start their season in the Freeman Athletic Center’s pool Saturday at 1 p.m. when Bates comes to town. Last year against the Bobcats, the women lost narrowly 122-121, while the men emerged victorious by a handy margin, 134-90. Training has left the team optimistic about this year’s outlook.