A-10 Swimming and Diving

[SFspidur]

Championships are going on this week...new venue at the Spire Institute outside of Cleveland rather than the long-standing home in Buffalo.

Spiders got off to a solid start yesterday, winning both relays. 200 medley relay just missed their conference record by a few hundredths. Some great freshman swims on both relays as well.

UR also took 4th and 10th in 1-meter diving, but the UMass juggernaut took six out of the top seven spots to build a big ~50 point lead on the night. Fortunately, it doesn't look like their swimming will be strong enough to contend for the title.

Some more nice swims this morning, with Jessie Krebs sitting first in the 500 free and Mali Kobelja atop the 200 IM heading into this evening's finals. Spiders have four of the top eight spots in each of the three individual events tonight.

I ran a little bit of mock scoring based on the results from prelims and I have UR at 169 points in the individual events if everything were to hold the same for finals. Among the other challengers, Fordham pencils in with 84 and La Salle at 58. UMass has only four swimmers in position to score, representing 32 points as they sit now, so their diving-inspired lead will evaporate (and then some) tonight.

 

[Spiders05]

SF, thanks as always for the analysis. It's a good yearly read.

 

[SpiderFan]

We are always so strong in swimming, especially in conference. Is there any reason we don't kill just as much with our diving team?

 

[SFspidur]

A number of reasons. For one we've had problems with coaching stability. Our current coach is leaving at the end of the season after three years, but the issue goes back over a decade.

We also have a pretty crappy facility for diving. Of course, it's pretty crappy for swimming too, so there's that.

For a long time we haven't put a lot of effort into recruiting divers, in part because of the coaching issues. I also don't know what the situation is with scholarship money...I suspect there isn't any money available for them. I don't know what UMass does in terms of scholarship money, but they have an accomplished coach who's been there for over a decade.

 

[AZspider]

Is there anything that could be done to improve the swimming facility within the current budget or is that something that probably would not happen for several years? To have a first rate indoor facility which could be used by local club teams, serve as a venue for state and regional meets, etc., would definitely provide a nice revenue stream for UR. The current swimming facility only has six lanes, is small and cramped, etc. A university like Richmond should offer a better venue when you compare it to the rest of our athletic facilities. I guess I'm preaching to the choir because swimming won't get funding like other revenue sports, but geez, I think we need to look at that facility sometime down the road and say to ourselves that it doesn't represent us the way it should. One final note: I wish the ladies all the best at the A-10 championships!!

 

[32counter]

UMass and others are throwing more scholarship monies at their program than in past years.Believe we have effectively 8.Diving is an easy and strategic place to gain meet points.Its why we lost to Ohio.We will find it tough in the 3meter dive as well at the A-10.Matt will need to replace both assistants for next season.Nice chemistry-coaches and athletes alike since I met them in Siesta Key for early Jan. training.

 

[32counter]

Re: A-10 Swimming and Diving-a note from Matt-a class act

Dear Friends of Richmond Swimming & Diving:

Can you believe another winter has whizzed by and we're on the edge of spring? You know what that means ? championship season! We are heading to Ohio on Tuesday to convince our A 10 friends to let us keep the trophy for another year. All the info you'll need will be right here: Richmond A 10 Championship Page. Please forward this email to other interested parties.

OHIO! Yup, we've graduated from Buffalo and advanced to Geneva, Ohio. Look it up on a map ? it's somewhat remote. We're flying in/out of Cleveland and packing our mittens (except me ? I don't own mittens).

FORECAST! I expect snow and a very tough meet. Instead of looking over our shoulder at one school, there is a pack of schools chasing us down (Schools have decided to invest more in their swim & dive teams.). We'll be extraordinarily jacked up for the relays, and we hope these five events set the tone for a great week.

CHEERS! Please find your way to a computer this week. In case you've missed it, swim meets are now streamed live. You can always use the "live results" site to see results and team scores. Of course, you can track it on Facebook and Twitter as well. If you are moved to send any well wishes, please drop them on our FB page or into the twitter-sphere! The women would love it.

CAST! We'll graduate Mina Vucic and Lauren Hines this year, and we'll also lose our dive coach Erika Matheis and our assistant swim coach Travis Stensby. Erika is entering the health care profession and Travis is heading home to work with the Omaha Sports Commission. They will be missed, but they're not done yet!

ALUMNI MEET! We will see you, right? We've moved it to coincide with the spring football game on April 20th ~ 9:00 a.m. ? 12:00 p.m. I'll have more info as we get closer. The events…200 Free, 50 Breast, 50 Free, 100 IM, 1m Diving, 50 Fly, 100 Free, 50 Back, 100 Mixed Medley Relay. We intend to open the pool after the meet for an open swim for all family members. Please help me spread the word.

GIFT GIVING! I received our first 2012-2013 report this week, and I thank you for your generosity. Your kindness helps us progress forward. In the last 12 months, we've upgraded our video system immensely which allows us to view swimming from a whole new perspective - underwater. Our intelligent women have used the system to their advantage, and we hope their improvements will be evident this week.

We hope to take another step this week.

Here we go!
MB

Matthew Barany
University of Richmond
Women's Swimming and Diving
Office: 804.289.8750
Cell: 804.349.3340

 

[SpiderFan]

Re: A-10 Swimming and Diving-a note from Matt-a class act

Not to jump ahead too much but with the outside possibility of a new conference affiliation and increased monies would any of that filter its way down to swimming at all? Or is it more of situation of needing one or two big swimming fan donors to increase money for new pools/facilities and/or coaches?

 

[32counter]

All non revenue sports will have to bolster up to be competitive.Scholarship caps will have to change closer to NCAA max.Recruiting will have to change for both roundball teams.

 

[32counter]

298-216 Spiders in lead after 2nd day over nearest competitor.

 

[SFspidur]

Swimming wouldn't necessarily need any bolstering to be competitive if we were to join the C7...we'd be an easy second best to Villanova. Georgetown, Seton Hall, and Providence are the only other C7 schools to sponsor women's swimming, and they're all awful. That said, it would be nice to get back up to the scholarship levels we were at a few years ago.

Facility improvements are tough for UR...they've done a bit in recent years...locker room renovations, new bleachers, new lights and sound, new scoreboard, etc., but when you get beyond the window dressing it's still a cramped six-lane 25-yard pool. Any real improvements will require a new facility running many millions of bucks.

Tonight played out about as expected, with the Spiders gobbling up points left and right. Mali Kobelja won the 200 IM in meet record time and the 200 free relay made it 3-for-3 in the Spider relays. Lots of other high finishes added to the total to give UR a firm lead with 298 points. UMass is second with 216...they'll get a bunch more points tomorrow from the 3-meter diving, but there are enough swimming events tomorrow that they'll have a difficult time closing the gap on us and then Saturday we should cruise. Fordham's in third at 183.5 and La Salle is in fourth at 176.

This post was edited on 2/21 10:44 PM by SFspidur

 

[SpiderPhoto]

See if they can use the new pool at Ukrops Park off Iron Bridge, the thing is state of the art..I believe the pool is the exact one used at Olympic Trials a few years ago. Then again, maybe not.

 

[Spiders05]

From what I've heard, our staff feels as though they have most of the tools they need to be competitive. I don't think we've asked for substantial facility upgrades. I just hope we can keep Matt around. I don't know much about coaching swimming, but the guy is a machine.

Re: the divers, I thought UR had a couple of pretty good ones this year. I don't think they had a great session in the championships, but I do think we have a couple of pretty good ones on the roster.

 

[SFspidur]

There was a major pool upgrade in the works over a decade ago, involving either a completely new pool, or busting out the bleachers wall to extend toward Robins Hall. But it never got beyond the idea stage, and no UR has missed the boat. The Richmond area was sorely in need of a high-quality facility at the time, and we had an opportunity to provide one. But now Poseidon has Ukrop Park and Nova rebuilt and expanded their facility. And yes, Poseidon did purchase the 2008 Olympic Trials pool for their facility.

We do have a couple of decent divers, which is a vast improvement on where we used to be, but UMass is still light years ahead. But like I said, I'm not sure exactly how they're doing it or how we might be able to emulate it.

This post was edited on 2/22 11:44 AM by SFspidur

 

[SFspidur]

Morning swimming session is over for the women. Spiders are coming back with the top spot in three of the five events: Natalya Ares in the 200 free, Mali Kobelja in the 100 breast, and Kelley Yang in the 100 fly. In the two events where we don't have the top seed, we're in second: Meredith Gouger in the 400 IM and Lauren Hines in the 100 back.

My mock scoring for the leaders based on prelims: Richmond 165, UMass 136, Fordham 122, La Salle 78.

That doesn't include a relay and 3-meter diving, the latter where UMass will make up a lot of ground...they will likely win today's overall scoring, but doubtful they'll be able to make up the entire 82-point deficit they're currently facing. And there's no women's diving tomorrow to help them, so UR should be in good shape.

 

[32counter]

UMass picked up 93 points in the 1m dive getting a 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,6th,7th.

UR picked up 21points in the 1m dive getting a 5th(Cook) and a 10th(Elias).

UMass net margin was 72 points in the 1m dive.

That would appear to be worst case math in favor of UMass over UR in the 3m dive.

 

[SFspidur]

Well, worst case would be UMass sweeping top 6 spots to pick up 95 points and UR finishing 17th and 18th for no points. But I think the chances of that happening are very close to nil.

 

[SFspidur]

FWIW, Erica Elias took 10th in 3-meter diving, so that's 7 points for the Spiders. The UMass juggernaut keeps on rolling, however, holding the top 5 spots and then UR's Katherine Cook tied for 6th with the last UMass diver.

Finals kick off in two hours.

 

[SpiderVol]

Diving is an interesting part of the event because each team can only enter 18 participants. Swimmers count as 1 and divers as a 1/3 because a diver can only participate in 2 events while swimmers can technically participate in 7. But because 4 of those events are relays and a school can only enter 1 relay team most of the swimmers only swim in 3-4 events (3 individual and 1 of the 5 relays). Some conferences have changed the rules to make a diver count as 1/2 instead of 1/3 (Big East).

So while UMass is using 6 divers and 2 spots to rack up lots of points that is 6 less individual swimming events and some gaps with relays that they miss out on. In the end they probably are making out but wouldn't be if they change the rule to 1/2 instead of 1/3.

 

[32counter]

40% of UMass total points going into the final day have come from 2 events-3m and 1m diving.Spider Swimming and Diving team lead the UMass Diving team by 54 points going into tomorrow.

This post was edited on 2/22 9:45 PM by 32counter

 

[SFspidur]

By my count, only 160 of UMass's 468 points are from individual swimming events.

Nice night for the Spiders fending off the UMass charge. Spiders have 54-point lead with a total score of 522. Everybody else is at least another 100 points back of UMass.

Solid start to the night with Meredith Gouger taking second in the 400 IM, followed by Molly McSweeney in fourth and Mariel Kush in fifth with personal bests all around.

The 100 fly saw freshman phenom Kelley Yang beat the field by almost a second and a half to break the A-10 record. Anna Fetter and Melissa Ross also dropped time from their prelim swims to take 11th and 14th respectively.

The 200 free had another superfrosh, Natalya Ares, setting an A-10 and UR record of 1:48.22 in the 200 free. Allison Tittley grabbed fifth and Jessie Krebs came in 11th.

Mali Kobelja earned her second individual gold of the meet in the 100 breast, with Erin Brady taking sixth.

And in the 100 back, Lauren Hines came up just short in the battle of backstroke superstars with Fordham's Brienne Ryan. She'll be looking for vengeance tomorrow in the 200.

Diving went off about as expected, with UMass taking the 1-5 and 8 spots. Katherine Cook took seventh for the Spiders.

Finally, the Spiders kept their relay streak going with yet another win in the 400 medley relay, cruising to victory by almost three seconds for their fourth relay gold. That event holds a special spot for the Spiders, as it's the only one they've never lost at A-10s, going 12 for 12 since joining the conference.

One more day to go, and I don't want to jinx the Spiders, but they'd have to fall flat on their faces in order to not win their 11th A-10 title in 12 years.

 

[SFspidur]

Also worth noting that the Spiders appear to be getting by illness. Senior Mina Vucic scratched for finals last night and did not swim the 200 free as scheduled today. Laura Jordan also didn't appear for her 100 fly today.

Two significant losses for our sprinting core...don't know details on what's up, but sad to see them go down.

 

[H2Okie]

Mina and Laura were suffering flu like symptoms - vomiting as well as Erica, the Diving coach. I think they went to the hospital, not sure if they stayed over night. When I first heard of it, it brought back horrible memories of the Maryland State Swimming Championships a few years ago....over 100 kids go sick as the vomiting was going on everywhere - pool deck, locker rooms, bathrooms, and even while swimming races. Several National News agencies even picked it up. One of mine got it, the other didn't.

Girls are looking really strong and feeling confident. Freshmen are killing it. No diving today so Spiders should dominate. Very proud of my Spider.

 

[urfan1]

Good luck to the ladies, hope all are well enough to compete--they've worked long and hard to get there, they deserve the chance to show their stuff.

 

[SFspidur]

Mina made a gutty showing just to swim the 100 free today. She just missed out on making back for consolation finals, coming in 17th. Laura didn't swim today.

Another strong showing today...Ares wins the 100 free, Kobelja wins the 200 breast, and Yang wins the 200 fly.

400 free relay just wrapped up, with the Spiders rolling to victory to complete the sweep of all five relays. Spiders cruise to the conference title by a 143-point margin over UMass.

This post was edited on 2/23 9:21 PM by SFspidur

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders sweep the swimming awards...Kobelja wins Most Outstanding, Yang wins Most Outstanding Rookie, and Barany wins Coach of the Year.

 

[spider3309]

SF,

I really appreciate your reports and your knowledge of the sport. Thank you very much!.

 

[urfan1]

Ditto SF, thanks, never really been a swimming/diving fan, but you help to bring meaning and understanding with your reports. Much appreciated!

 

[AZspider]

I'm biased (multiple swimmers as well as football players in this family), but swimming is one of the most (if not the most) physically demanding athletic pursuits. What these athletes do every week to prepare for the season and conference meets is nothing short of amazing...thousands of yards each week, dry-land, seven days in the pool every week, staying ahead academically....to be as dominant as they've been in the A-10 is an absolute testament to Coach Barany and his athletes. Congratulations ladies...you make us proud to be Spiders!!

 

[MidloTrader]

Amazing how dominating we've been. Loved viewing their videos this week and looked like some great swims. Hope they're playing them across campus to build that Spider Pride. Should get at least a mention on local sports, too. Huge number of swimming teams and enthusiasts in our community here. Way to go Spiders!

 

[32counter]

Mina and Lauren are graduating and Matt loses his two assistants.Matt will have to reload which he knows how to do.His underclassmen,particularly the frosh,are a very special group.Many UR and A-10 records will be broken over the next 3 years by this group.Matt's energy and planning and people IQ are the glue that keeps this team humming.He continues his pursuit of a UR MBA,he won't be awarded until 2014.After that,the school will likely be very pressed to keep him.His predecessor is the University of Tennessee Men's and Women's coach-highly rated in the SEC and nationally.The discipline and energy levels that these UR women have is extraordinary, reflective in their recent collective GPA of 3.65.


This post was edited on 2/24 8:46 PM by 32counter