Pirates Open Season Against Montclair State

Oct. 7, 2014

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - The length of a swimming & diving season is not confined to the number of meets on the schedule.

Maintaining peak performance levels requires a year-round commitment that often sees competitors rising before the sun to hone their craft. With much of that preseason work now behind them however, the Seton Hall women's swimming & diving squad is primed to begin its 2014-15 slate tomorrow against Montclair State.

Wednesday's matchup with the Hawks will be the first of 10 regular season dates for the Pirates, six of which will occur prior to the winter break.

The Hall will take on Rider and travel to Baltimore for a quad meet at Loyola (Md.) before making its home debut on Saturday, November 1 against BIG EAST rival Providence. Two multi-day meets precede the traditional winter training trip to Ponce, Puerto Rico as the Seton Hall women will clash with familiar foes in Georgetown, Rutgers and Villanova at another quad meet in Piscataway before closing the fall at the highly competitive Patriot Invitational hosted by George Mason.

The Pirates will be re-introduced to competition through two home dual meets against local competition as Iona (1/14) and Marist (1/24) will both visit South Orange before Seton Hall closes its dual meet schedule the following day with a visit to former conference foe Connecticut.

A trip to Bucknell for an invitational meet on the final day of January closes out the regular season and the Pirates will then have just over two weeks off from competition before heading to Ithaca, N.Y. to vie for their first-ever BIG EAST crown.

The Seton Hall women are coming off a year in which they finished fourth in a new-look BIG EAST conference but took home a program record four individual titles behind the efforts of Most Outstanding Diver Gabby Signorelli (Massapequa, N.Y.) and Co-Most Oustanding Female Swimmer Kerrie Kolackovsky '14.

Along with Signorelli and Kolackovsky, six other team members earned All-BIG EAST accolades by placing in the top-three of an event final at the conference meet, five of whom return to the 2014-15 squad.

With the stage set and competition set to begin, let's take a look at the lineup options that longtime head coach Ron Farina will have at his disposal during the upcoming season:

BACKSTROKE

Sophomore Melody Bush (Guelph, Ontario) returns to headline The Hall's contingent in the backstroke after placing her name on the record board next to both the 100 and 200-backstroke events in just her first year of collegiate competition. The only freshman to earn BIG EAST Female Swimmer of the Week last season, Bush capped her debut campaign with one individual bronze at the BIG EAST Championships and helped set new school records in the 200 and 400-medley relays en route to taaaking home four All-BIG EAST honors.

Junior Cora Meehan (Noblesville, Ind.) recorded the second-fastest 200-back time on the squad during the regular season a year ago and entered the BIG EAST Championship seeded among the top-eight in the conference in the event. Like Melody Bush, Meehan is a returning All-BIG EAST performer (800-free relay).

Sophomore Kelsey Buonaiuto (Miller Place, N.Y.) was the only swimmer to rank among the top-five on the team in both the 100 and 200-back besides Bush and adds to a deep group that includes three other competitors in Gabi Levine (Garwood, N.J.), Alexa Santis (Ijamsville, Md.)and Leah Mayer (London, Ontario) who placed among the top-16 in the league in a backstroke event at the 2014 championship meet as well asKatie Adams (Linwood, N.J.).

The contingent will also be bolstered by newcomer Paige Anderson, a New Jersey native who spent the 2013-14 campaign competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference for the University of Miami (FL).

BREASTSTROKE

With Kolackovsky having completed her career, the mantle has officially been passed to junior Megan Mallon (Glen Mills, Pa.) who could threaten a number of school records currently owned by her predecessor. Mallon placed second behind only Kolackovsky in the 100-breast at the conference meet in February, collecting The Hall's only silver medal in the pool.

Mallon added a bronze medal in the 200-breast and was a key part of two other medal-winning relay squads as well.

Senior Megan Mostoller (Cheshire, Conn.) and sophomores Annie Bucca (New Brunswick, N.J.) and Maddie Harris (Ocala, Fla.) are the other top returning performers in the breaststroke for Seton Hall while freshman Sydney Simpson (Tallahassee, Fla.) is coming off a senior season in which she placed third in the 100-breast at the FHSAA swimming championships.

In Mallon, Mostoller, Bucca and Harris, The Hall brings back four swimmers who ranked among the top-17 in the conference in both breaststroke events during the regular season last year.

BUTTERFLY

On the women's side, the Pirates' roster features four of the team's five fastest performers in each butterfly event from a season ago, a group that is led by the sophomore duo of Cece Henry (St. Charles, Mo.) and Tessa Lindner (Sun Prairie, Wisc.).

Lindner collected a sixth-place finish at in the 100-fly in her first trip to the BIG EAST Championships, pacing a trio of finalists that also included Levine and then-senior Kelly Markwell.

The Wisconsin native also picked up seventh-place points in the 200-fly a race in which her classmate Henry narrowly missed adding another bronze medal for The Hall with a fourth-place effort.

Senior Sarah Dougherty (Waterford, N.Y.) and junior Kelly Miller (State College, Pa.) aided the squad's efforts throughout the season and will welcome school record holder Jane Ehret (Florida, N.Y.) back to the fold after the veteran did not compete in 2013-14.

DIVING

The aforementioned Signorelli enters the upcoming season as the reigning champion and will look to do her part to continue the dominance that saw Seton Hall sweep every available diving championship in her sophomore season.

The Massapequa native improved drastically in 2013-14 and with two gold medals, two All-BIG EAST honors and a trip to the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships already to her credit, she will be looking to replicate such an effort while also taking aim at the school records.

Replacing former captain Katie Riley is newcomer Lindsay McGowan (Roswell, Ga.), another diver accustomed to making school history after having become the first diver in the history of Blessed Trinity Catholic to qualify for the Georgia state championship.

FREESTYLE

Junior Rae Congdon (Ottawa, Ontario) helps lead an array of talented options in the myriad of freestyle events having finished ninth in the 200-free and 11^th in the 100-free as a sophomore but as the distance varies so will the key performers.

Meehan finished 12^th in the 500-free while Adams and sophomore Erica Naumann (Middletown, Conn.) stand among the team's most accomplished 1,650-free swimmers.

Junior Isabell Alario (Hermosa Beach, Calif.) and freshman Courtney Regan (Southbury, Conn.) add to the middle distance options while the welcome introductions of fellow freshmen Kat Carson (Katy, Texas), Kylene Ronayne (Springfield, Pa.) and Sam Shirtliff (Camp Hill, Pa.) should serve to further strengthen the results in freestyle events as individuals and as part of relay squads.

INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY

Both Bush (200-IM) and Henry (400-IM) collected seventh-place points in individual medley events at the BIG EAST Championship to close their debut campaigns.

The return of Ehret could prove to have a major impact in both individual relay events but there is no shortage of capable options as Buonaiuto, Lindner, Mostoller and Santis all ranked among the team leaders in the discipline a year ago.

It is clear that the Seton Hall women's swimming diving team is poised to build on the success of last season and the Pirates will get their first shot at competition tomorrow against Montclair State. Start-time is scheduled for 5:00 p.m., with the swimming portion to be held at MSU and the diving competition to be hosted by The Hall.

Scoreboard

Seton Hall University Athletics

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