Men’s swimming and diving put out an impressive effort on Oct. 6. Although they lost 125-102 against a very strong team, SUNY Geneseo, the men of UR had some very impressive moments and showed a great deal of improvement in many key areas.
“I was very proud of the results,” Head Coach Danielle Herring said. “The men swam very well, and showed some great signs of improvement.”
Rochester had a total of 13 personal best times, which Herring said was great for this early in the season.
“If we can get into the pool and do this every time, we will turn some heads,” Herring said. “We can still get much better. We were strong off the blocks and really worked the walls. I’m really excited to see what we can do.”
Among the top performers for the Yellowjackets was sophomore Zach Freed, who took first in both the 1,000 and 500-yard freestyle. Senior Pete Maxwell touched the wall first in the 200-yard backstroke, and was a very close second in the 200-yard freestyle. Sophomore Craig Matt took first in the 200-yard butterfly.
Junior Sam Schrauth swam a very tough meet. Schrauth was asked to swim the 1,000-yard freestyle as well as the 200-yard butterfly, a very “deadly combo,” in the words of Herring. He swam a personal best in both.
Once again, UR men’s diving had a very strong performance due to the outstanding effort of junior Ted Elton, who dove on the three-meter board for more points than he had before.
“I was very excited with the team’s performance,” Elton said. “I know that I can get much better, and I look forward to the rest of the season.”
“[Elton] is extremely talented,” newly hired men’s and women’s diving coach Greg Brandes said. “He has been learning several new dives recently, and he used them against Geneseo. If he can dive a season best on this little practice, I can only imagine what he will be able to do when he has had time to practice.”
“Geneseo was a team with a lot of depth, and I was very impressed with how well we swam against them,” Herring said. “I am really looking forward to see what we can do against Union [College].”
Nissan can be reached at dnissan@campustimes.org.