Ryan Flynn – Sports Editor –
Men and Women’s swimming and diving have identical records through two meets after both squads defeated Saint Rose and then fell to Yale.
In their season opener against Saint Rose, the women logged a dominant 160-120 victory thanks to three individual first place finishes by Junior Anna Pleban and two by senior Nicole Caron.
The men took the win in comeback fashion, winning 148-140 after trailing for most of the day.
“Some very encouraging early signs but still a long way to go,” head swimming coach Tim Quill said after the opening day win. “Cautiously optimistic. We’ve got to keep everybody heathy, got to make sure that they continue to work hard in practice and stay up with their studies. These are the priorities at this particular point. Getting your work done in the classroom and in the pool and keeping yourself healthy.”
Raymond Cswerko led the way for the men’s team, winning three individual events. It was freshman Louis Geist who stole the show, however, coming back to win in the final leg of 200 IM.
“Lou has a lot of potential,” Quill said. “He’s real young, he’s got a really good skill set but there’s certain aspects of his swimming that we need to make some pretty big improvements on and what I like about him is that he’s willing to make those improvements. He kind of thinks outside the box and he’s not afraid to try some new things.”
Swimming and diving has been dominant under Tim Quill, winning 17 NE-10 titles.
On the diving side of things, coach Tim Cyr spoke about how he felt after one meet.
“Obviously we didn’t have all of our divers competing today, but the two women that competed did very well. Very happy with the progress that we’ve made at this point of the season. My philosophy really is to try to teach the basic fundamentals early in the year and continue with the basic fundamentals throughout the year. At this point in time we’re not really doing the whole list of the harder dives which are called optionals. We’re still building to that point but at this point of the season, very happy with how they did.”
Against Yale, Southern was unable to keep this momentum going. The men lost the meet by a score of 235-59, while the women lost 222-77. Senior Amanda Thomas impressed despite the overall team loss, with two first-place finishes and one second-place finish.
The teams will next compete in the USMMA invite in King’s Point, New York on Saturday, November 17th.
