S&D Travels to Puerto Rico
1/5/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
As they prepare for the resumption of the 2012-13 season, both the men’s and women’s teams touched down on the island earlier this week with the opportunity to break the monotony of winter training via a week-long stay.
“The training trip is an important part of our season,” said head coach Ron Farina prior to this, his 13th year at the helm for The Hall.
“It is a nice change of pace to get somewhere sunny as we continue to work towards the championship season. Our team gets to bond and enjoy the surroundings, but at the same time, they’re working to elevate their performance.”
Even before fully hitting their stride, both teams put together an impressive ledger of results heading into the mid-season mark.
The Seton Hall women shot out of the gate and carried an unblemished 7-0 dual meet record into the break; outscoring opponents by an average margin just over 66 points.
Junior Kerrie Kolackovsky (Franklin Square, N.Y.) has been at the forefront of the charge, leading a group of 19 team members already headed to the 2013 BIG EAST Championship with automatic qualifying times in seven different events.
Kolackovsky closed the fall by emerging from a 10-team field to sweep the breaststroke events at the Patriot Invitational, pushing her team-leading total to 11 individual wins. As a part of her victory in the 100-yard breaststroke, the Franklin Square native re-wrote her own previous school record with a time of 1:04.05.
Kolackovsky is far from the only Pirate who enjoyed a strong fall. Veteran stalwarts Jane Ehret (Florida, N.Y.), Brenna O’Keefe (Hyde Park, N.Y.), Katie Riley (Newburgh, N.Y.), Andrea Shuba (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Alie Zelenky (Mechanicsburg, Pa.) have all played a key role in the team’s dominance.
Ehret and Riley have won nearly half of the events in which their time counted towards the team score while seniors O’Keefe and Zelenky have each posted four wins and set a new personal record in an event.
Shuba, another senior, also has four wins and surpassed her own previous school record in the 100-yard backstroke in the final meet of the fall.
The squad has also received a boost from a slew of impact freshmen. Nine first-year competitors have booked a ticket to Indianapolis for the conference meet. Some notable examples include the efforts of Gabi Levine (Garwood, N.J.) and Megan Mallon (Glen Mills, Pa.) who both have multiple wins to their credit. Native Hoosier Cora Meehan (Noblesville, Ind.) has also earned a return trip to the familiar setting and has paired with Shuba to give SHU a potent 1-2 punch in the backstroke.
On the men’s side, a balanced SHU team captured three dual meet wins in the first two months of the season, and went into the break with a strong fourth place finish at the Patriot Invitational.
From the diving board, sophomore Ben Mitchell (Milford, Pa.) wasted no time in putting his stamp on the new season, setting new school records from one-meter and three-meters in the first two meets of the year. His one-meter high score of 322.88 set against Montclair State clinched a berth in March’s NCAA Zone Diving Championships and was one of four individual wins for Mitchell in the first half of the schedule.
Fellow sophomore and Keystone State product, James Logan (Wallingford, Pa.), has built off his late- season surge in 2011-12 to cement his place as a key figure in SHU’s freestyle and breaststroke rotation.
When it comes to the pool however, the Pirate men are led by senior standouts Austin Acheson (Olathe, Kan.) and Ryan O'Shaughnessy (Coral Springs, Fla.). Acheson and O’Shaughnessy are already assured to carry automatic qualifying times in at least four events into the BIG EAST Championship. A finish outside the top-three has been a rare occurrence for the two, suggesting that the Pirate co-captains will be primed to make a statement in their final go-around at the conference meet.
Freshman Tim Bosse (New Windsor, N.Y.) has proven undaunted by the collegiate stage, registering an automatic qualifying time in five of the six events he has competed in. He has also been a force in dual meet competition, finishing no lower than fourth in head-to-head action.
A stacked junior class that includes Matt Benson (Overland Park, Kan.), Greg Black (Easton, Pa.), and Ian DeLisio (Woodstock, N.Y.) has emerged as a vital part of the Pirates’ success as they continue to improve. The aforementioned trio has met conference standards in at least three events each while classmates Joey Lacus (Wethersfield, Conn.), Tyler Naumann (Middletown, Conn.) and Jon Ropson (McKinney, Texas) are swimmers to watch in the coming months after rounding into form towards the latter portion of the fall schedule.
Lacus, already headed towards his third-straight BIG EAST appearance, took some time to weigh in on the significance of the Puerto Rico trip.
“Puerto Rico provides us a unique opportunity,” said Lacus. “We get to train outside and enjoy the warm climate in what is ultimately a very rewarding week. Training has been extremely difficult, but we have been focused and the work we put in should provide a springboard for the rest of the season.”
“What is also nice about the trip is how the team comes together as a family,” Lacus added. We are already a tight-knit group prior to the trip, but the training brings us together as a whole and we become extremely supportive of each other. It's moments like this that make me extremely proud and honored to be a Pirate!”
Upon their return, the Pirates will continue to train leading up to their first meet of 2013. Seton Hall will host Marist College on Saturday, January 26 at 1:00 p.m. in a meet that will serve as Senior Day for eight team members.
It will be the first of a back-to-back for The Hall as SHU’s trip to Connecticut, originally scheduled for Saturday, January 19 has been moved to Sunday, January 27.
