Swimmers and divers off to Mankato
After weeks of practice, the University of South Dakota swimming and diving teams are gaining some momentum heading into their first meets of the fall season, improving off last year’s conference finishes.
The teams competed in an inter-squad exhibition meet Sept. 28 to gain a feel for competition. Still, head coach Jason Mahowald said the athletes and coaches are ready for a new season to kickoff now that practices have been going on for awhile.
“We were pretty pleased from the inter-squad. It’s hard to tell really how it went overall,” Mahowald said. “It’s hard to get up for a meet that’s just us against us. I think our team is excited to see other faces in the meets coming up.”
Sophomore Rachel Svendson said the young team is ready to see where it stands as a team and as individuals.
“We’re all just looking to see how we perform at meets,” Svendson said. “We’ve been working really hard. Our team is pretty young, so it will be nice to see what talent we have for the coming years.”
The first meet will take place Oct. 12 at Minnesota State-Mankato. Only the women’s teams will be competing, and competition will be almost exclusively sprint events— something Mahowald sees as a good starting point for the season.
“It should be a fast meet, and it should be our first real gauge as to where we are for the rest of the season. At this point, everything’s just really hard to tell,” he said.
The Coyotes will be introducing 17 new athletes between the men and women’s teams, Mahowald said.
“We have a young team to see mature and grow every time we go out. Our big focus this year is doing things the right way the first time,” Mahowald said. “We’ve got a very talented freshman/sophomore class right now that we’re working with. They’re starting to fit in really well.”
Junior swimmer Colin Krysl said the strong first-year class should help the team become more balanced, which hurt last year when the team finished last at the conference meet.
“Our team has lacked depth in certain places,” Krysl said. “Sometimes we’ll have to put middle to distance swimmers in sprinter spots because they have faster times. We really just need to improve everywhere so we don’t have to mix up our line-ups.”
Last year’s poor finish at conference on the men’s side isn’t what Mahowald remembers. Mahowald said the team had one of its better days but just weren’t able to have everything to work out perfectly.
Mahowald has a number of swimmers he believes will make big impacts this season, starting with returning divers Dustin Gens and Megan Chmielewski. With each coming off high finishes at conference last year, the two divers are expected to set the tone for the rest of the team.
From there, a number of other athletes are expected to step up and help the team improve immensely, according to Mahowald. First-years Allie Pfauth and Jacob Knowles have already made a splash in the coach’s eyes, and Penn State transfer Courtney Shepler will help the Coyotes immediately.
“I can tell you I think this is a better team and a more talented team than we had a year ago,” Mahowald said. “We just have some really strong athletes. At this point, I think they’re doing a really good job. There’s still work to be done.”
