IU senior diver Jessica Parratto has high expectations for the women’s swimming and diving team this season.
The Hoosiers, who finished last season ranked twelfth in the final CSCAA Coaches Poll and second in the Big Ten, are going to rely on a mix of new and old from last year’s squad. The returners include Parratto and senior Brooklynn Snodgrass, both of whom took last season off to train for the 2016 Olympics.
Parratto will also be tasked with a new challenge, shifting from a focus in platform diving, in which she competed at the Olympics, to springboard. However, the change will not be all new for Parratto, as she began her career at IU finishing seventh in the 3-meter springboard at the NCAA championships as a freshman.
“She has the ability to do all the dives with the top girls in the world and has done them already,” said IU Coach Drew Johansen. “Now, to train springboard on a more regular basis is gonna be a nice change of pace for her as well as show that she’s a triple threat.”
Snodgrass didn’t make the Canadian national team after taking her redshirt year, but she was the Big Ten Swimmer of the Year and NCAA champion in the 200-meter backstroke as a sophomore, and she set the conference record for the 100-meter backstroke her junior year at the Big Ten Championships.
Lilly King and junior Kennedy Goss are perhaps IU’s most high profile swimmers. King,, won two gold medals in Rio and returns to Bloomington as the defending NCAA champion in the 100 and 200-meter breaststroke, as well as CSCAA swimmer of the year.
Goss won a bronze medal in Rio and was a five-time All American.
“We’re good all the way around,” said Looze. “We’ve got some some great athletes, both in the diving well and the swimming pool. I’d expect some good stuff.”
