Hoosiers start season in Kentucky

With the Indiana swimming and diving team finishing offseason training, several returning individuals boasting various summer accolades and the addition of a hyped freshman class, prospects are high as the Hoosiers head into their first regular season
meet  Friday.

The team will travel to Lexington, Ky., for a dual meet against Kentucky and Tennessee.

“We are competing against two SEC teams, so anytime you’re competing against the SEC, you have to bring your A game,” IU Assistant Head Coach Donny Brush said. “We have two cohesive units, but it will be interesting to see how they respond when they are put up against some competition and adversity.”  

Following the loss of Brittany Strumbel, Allysa Vavra, Margaux Farrell and Laura Ryan, four leading scorers on the women’s team last season, the Hoosiers will want the incoming freshman class to step up immediately.

Freshmen Brooklyn Snodgrass and Haley Lips will make their collegiate debuts for IU in Friday’s dual meet.

Snodgrass, a Canadian swimmer who won three gold medals at the 2011 Age-Group Nationals, finished sixth in the 100-meter backstroke and 11th in the 200-meter backstroke at Canadian Olympic Trials in April.

Last summer, Lips won two gold medals at the YMCA National Long Course Championships in the 400-meter freestyle with a national record time of 4:17.56 and the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:19.52.

Lips is also a member of the USA Swimming 2012-13 Junior National team.

The two are part of a freshman class that consists of 26 men’s and women’s
swimmers.

“They are the strongest group of freshmen that I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” junior Cody Miller said. “They’ve really integrated into the program and have started competing well in workouts better than other freshmen have in the past, even better than my class did, which is pretty big.”

On the men’s side, junior Eric Ress will return to his first meet since the 2011 NCAA Championships after sitting out the 2011-12 season to train for the London Olympics.

Although Ress fell three-tenths of a second short of qualifying for last summer’s Olympics, the 2011 NCAA runner up in both the 100- and 200-yard backstroke said his return to collegiate swimming is much anticipated.

“I’m really swimming for something bigger than myself, so I’ve never been more excited than I am for this dual meet,” Ress said, “I’m really pumped about it.”

In addition to Ress’ scoring potential, the Hoosiers return all nine of its point scorers from a top 10 finish in last March’s NCAA Championships.

One of those scorers, sophomore Steve Schmuhl, placed 14th in the 200-meter butterfly in the NCAA as a freshman.

In a breakout summer, Schmuhl qualified for the 2012 Short Course World Championships after earning a bronze medal at the U.S. Open in the 400-meter individual medley.

“We had a great preseason, and everybody seems a lot more fit than they’ve been in the past,” Brush said. “Obviously, I think Schmuhl had an outstanding summer, so as a freshman last year coming in, we are looking for big things from him.”

As Friday’s meet approaches, the Hoosiers anticipate it being a stepping stone into a new season.

The team knows more important meets wait for it down the line, but the swimmers said they look forward to the challenge of a season opener.

“We train through the dual meets and work on little things in the meets that we work on in practice to get better, so if we don’t do great, it’s not that big of a deal,” senior Mick Dell’Orco said. “As long as we keep doing the right things, it will all come
together at the end.”