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(12/05/13 5:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU men’s and women’s swim teams will compete at the 2013 USA Swimming Winter National Championships this weekend in Knoxville, Tenn.The teams will send 32 Hoosiers to the meet, while the remaining swimmers will compete at the local Winter Invitational at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center. To qualify, each swimmer needed to meet the Winter National cut time qualification.“This will be the last opportunity for us, either here or down at Winter Nationals, to post some times and really see where we’re at,” IU Coach Ray Looze said.The Hoosiers are coming off a month of training without competition. Looze said it has been a great opportunity for the team to focus on phase one of its training.“We’ve had just a lot of uninterrupted training most importantly,” he said. “We’ve been working on our mental toughness and the ability to swim fast while in heavy training.”Junior swimmer Joe Powell said the team is mentally preparing to get back into competition mode.“We’ve been training really hard the month of November,” he said. “Everyone’s swimming really fast, so we’re coming down a little bit and making sure that we’re more focused on this meet rather than on volume.”Leading the way for the Hoosiers at Winter Nationals will be national team members and seniors Cody Miller and Lindsay Vrooman and junior Steve Schmuhl.Primarily a distance swimmer, Vrooman will be the third seed in the 500-meter and 1,650-meter freestyle. She is also the seventh seed in the 200-meter freestyle.Miller is the top seed in the 200-meter breaststroke and 200-meter individual medley, as well as the second seed in the 100-meter breaststroke. Schmuhl enters the meet as the third seed in the 400-meter IM and seventh seed in the 200-meter IM.For Looze, the team’s goal going into this weekend is clear.“We want to swim really, really fast and make a nice statement to USA swimming that we’re continuing to improve as a program,” he said.Other top swimmers for IU include senior backstrokers Eric Ress and James Wells and sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass. Senior Bronwyn Pasloski will lead the women in the breaststroke, senior Brenna MacLean in the butterfly, and sophomore Haley Lips in the freestyle.The Hoosiers will face off against top programs such as Michigan, Tennessee and Louisville.In the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, the men’s team is currently ranked ninth, and the women are No. 14.This weekend the team hopes to see where it stands among the some of the best teams in the country.“I think it’ll be a good gage of where we are,” Powell said. “When we get a lot of fast swimming in the middle of the season, it helps us get really excited for the end of the season. That way, during the last two months before Big Tens, we always put in a lot of good work, especially after a good winter meet.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(12/04/13 5:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ten high school swimmers have signed their National Letter of Intent to join the IU swim team in 2014 since Nov. 20.The recruiting process for this class began two years ago and still isn’t complete.IU Coach Ray Looze said he is excited about the swimmers the team has so far, especially with the depth and international experience they will bring.In finding swimmers who he can build a team around, Looze said he looks beyond the impressive qualities.He looks for the intangibles, such as work ethic, character, leadership, competitiveness and ability to perform under pressure.Looze said he looks at whether each swimmer is team-oriented.“In a two-hour workout you start to reveal who you really are,” he said. “The individualist will not be happy at Indiana University.”Looze said he continues to recruit 365 days a year, and he doesn’t go a day without doing something in recruiting — not even national holidays.The recruiting doesn’t stop there, though.Junior Dorina Szekeres is from Hungary and freshman Anze Tavcar came to IU from Slovenia.Kennedy Goss, a Toronto native, will join Canadian sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass and junior Cynthia Pammett in 2014.Goss competed at Junior Worlds, the top meet for swimmers 18 and younger. She will swim the backstroke and freestyle.Goss’s father was an Olympic swimmer, and her mother is a sports psychologist.Although she won’t be close to home, Goss looks to follow in their footsteps as she works toward her own Olympic dream and studies psychology at IU.Also on the women’s side, sprinter Kaitlin Kitchens will become a Hoosier in 2014.Out of Atlanta, she currently swims for one of the top teams in the country.Ali Rockett and Delaney Barnard complete a trio of freestylers for the recruiting class.Marie Chamberlain, from Cape Cod, Mass., was the YMCA National Champion last year and holds the meet’s record in the 100-meter backstroke. She will join the IU backstroke squad.For Chamberlain, swimming at IU is the next step toward her Olympic dream.She began swimming at age 8 and said she always hoped to compete at the highest level. She said she now sets her sights on Rio and Tokyo.“Marie Chamberlain goes in line with some of the great backstrokers we have in the program and have had,” Looze said. “We think she can be really, really good.”Looze said he is continuing to search for a female breaststroker and female distance swimmer.On the men’s side, Teddy Kalp and Blake Pieroni are two who competed at Junior Worlds with Goss.Kalp, a Canadian, is primarily a middle-distance freestyler.Pieroni was one of the top Indiana recruits, helping lead Chesterton High School to the state title last season.He is the defending Indiana High School Champion in the 200 individual medley and two-time defending champion in the 100-meter freestyle for Chesterton.“Blake Pieroni is one of the top 18 and under freestylers in the world,” Looze said. “He was probably the top overall recruit for the state of Indiana, so it’s awesome to get him.”Brandon Colonis, from West Lafayette, and Cody Taylor, from Columbus, Ind., are two other in-state recruits.Both are primarily breaststrokers and Taylor, who is a member of the Junior National team, was state champion last winter in the 100-yard breaststroke.For now, Ryan Gordon completes the 2014 freshman class.His best strokes are the 100- and 200-yard backstroke, and he was a U.S. Open Qualifier in 2013.“Ryan Gordon is a backstroker and IM-er from New York State,” Looze said. “We’re losing a lot of backstrokers with Eric (Ress) and James (Wells) graduating, so he’s going to really help us.”As for replacing this year’s seniors, Looze said it’s not all about filling spots in each individual stroke.“The biggest thing we’re losing is awesome leadership,” he said. “We don’t always try to replace by need, but more by those characteristics.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(11/14/13 5:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When senior diver Darian Schmidt started diving, he was a freshman in high school. Just two months later, he quit.Later that year, he got a phone call. It was from Mark Lenzi, 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist. Lenzi, a wrestler in high school, began diving after being captivated by Greg Louganis’ performance at the 1984 Olympic games. Diving immediately became his passion.An IU alum, Lenzi had just moved back to Indiana and was coaching the local club diving team. Then he called Schmidt.“He called me and said, ‘I heard you dove last year but didn’t like it. Just come check it out, and maybe you’ll like it.’ And my parents were like, ‘I think that’s the Olympic Gold Medalist,’” Schmidt said. “That was the coolest thing ever.”All his life, Schmidt had played football, basketball and baseball. When he got to high school, he decided he was too small to continue playing the sports he had always loved. As a freshman, he stuck with baseball hoping to eventually play in college.After he got the call from Lenzi, however, his focus turned to diving. He began training year round, competing for his high school team at Bloomington South as well as IU club diving. Schmidt said he liked the change to an individual sport.“I like having all the pressure on me,” he said. “I can’t blame somebody else. It’s not like ‘Oh, we lost because we could’ve played better defense.’ It’s all on me.”His first year back as a diver, he reached state championships. Schmidt then built on this accomplishment his junior year with a third-place finish. Less than three years after beginning his training in the sport, he was state champion.Schmidt is from Bloomington and wanted to attend IU ever since he could remember. He grew up with four brothers and, being family-oriented, never wanted to leave.He was also raised among a family of athletes. Both of his parents were gymnasts at IU. Though he was never a gymnast, Schmidt said he probably got the flipping from them.Long before he set his sights on diving, Schmidt would flip on the trampoline in the backyard with his dad, and he would often dive at the swimming pool in the summer. It was always just for fun, though, never anything close to an Olympic dream.That all changed one day at club diving practice. Lenzi brought in his Olympic gold medal to show the team. After trying on the medal, Schmidt knew that was something he wanted to accomplish.He has spent the past couple Olympics watching the athletes he aspires to one day become.“Just watching those athletes dedicate their lives and put their heart and soul into diving, or any sport, and then to watch them achieve it is super inspiring,” he said.He knew achieving the high goals he had set for himself wouldn’t just come to him. It would take unrivaled dedication. Schmidt said he looks forward to every practice and never gets tired of seeing how much he can improve each day.“I try to take every day and give it 100 percent in the pool,” he said.He has mental routines for before each meet, in between each dive and right before performing the dive. Before the meet, he hits a sign that says “Whatever It Takes,” a reminder to remain motivated toward his ultimate goals.In addition to the 20 hours of practice a week, Schmidt often comes early to practice or stays late to get in more work. His hard work has shown in competition so far in his collegiate career.As a sophomore, Schmidt was Big Ten Champion in the 3-meter and synchronized competitions and was on his way to being named Big Ten Diver of the Championships. He repeated this feat a year later, while going on to place sixth on the 1-meter and third on the 3-meter at the NCAA Championships. He was also named Big Ten Diver of the Year.Last summer at United States Nationals, he had second, third and fourth-place finishes in the synchronized 3-meter, 1-meter and 3-meter competitions, respectively. Schmidt also currently owns six school records.“He’s competing with the best divers in the country right now and starting to compete against some of the best divers in the world,” IU Diving Coach Drew Johansen said. “He doesn’t have the long history (in diving). He has developed that world level in a relatively short period of time. It’s pretty special.”Schmidt has high expectations for the remainder of this season, as he hopes to be Big Ten Champion in the 1- and 3-meter, just as Lenzi was in 1989. Other goals include becoming NCAA Champion on the 1- and 3-meter and being champion at U.S. Nationals in December.Though his eligibility will expire at the conclusion of the season, he has one year of school left. Next year, he will continue to train at IU and be coached by Johansen. Schmidt said once he’s done with school in 2014, his “life will be training.”At the Olympic Trials in 2016, he will attempt to qualify in both the 3-meter springboard and 3-meter synchronized competitions.“Our hope is for him to get a lot more international experience next year once the NCAA career comes to an end. Traveling internationally and competing head to head with divers around the world is the next step for Darian in his quest for Rio,” Johansen said.Schmidt said he doesn’t know what’s in store for him after 2016. He hopes to continue diving for as long as possible.When his diving career comes to a close, he doesn’t want to leave the sport. Schmidt said he wants to become a diving coach, first at the club level and eventually take over a college program.For now, though, his life is all about the Olympic dream.“I eat, sleep and breathe diving,” he said. “Right now we’re definitely training for the college season, but we’re preparing for the Olympics.”At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Mark Lenzi was the 3-meter springboard champion. It wasn’t until 20 years later that an American won a medal in diving again when David Boudia, Purdue University alum, took gold in the 10-meter platform and bronze in the 10-meter synchronized at the London Olympics in 2012.In 2016, Schmidt will attempt to become a part of the tradition of Big Ten diving success.“He does the hardest dives in the world and makes them as easy as anybody,” Johansen said. “He’s probably one of the best divers in the U.S. and amongst the world.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(11/04/13 3:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU swimming Coach Ray Looze had an almost endless list of swimmers to praise after Friday’s meet.The men’s team saw contributions all across the board in its 208-92 and 179-121 sweep of Kentucky and No. 8 Tennessee, respectively.“We put emphasis on this meet all week long,” Looze said. “We couldn’t be happier going against two solid SEC opponents.”Senior swimmer Eric Ress won the 200-meter backstroke and both the 500-meter and 1,000-meter freestyle. Looze said such a race load was uncommon, and the result was the kind of aggression he was looking for out of his swimmers.“For a guy to be able to do that and then still throw up a great relay split on the end was phenomenal leadership,” Looze said.Ress said the team trained even harder this past week than it had previously.“Basically what we did this week was we took what we did at Texas/Michigan and worked out a lot of those things like really good finishes and winning close races, just being more competitive at practice,” Ress said.The Hoosiers went 1-2-3 in the 200-meter freestyle with freshmen Anze Tavcar, Max Irwin and Jackson Miller finishing first, second and third, respectively.IU’s relay team of senior James Wells, senior Cody Miller, Irwin and sophomore Tanner Kurz won the 200-meter medley relay. Other first-place finishes included Miller in the 100-meter breaststroke and 200-meter individual medley, and junior Steve Schmuhl in the 200-meter butterfly.Ress said the biggest difference in team results this week was encouragement from teammates.“At first, I didn’t know how much of an impact that was going to have, but it was incredible how much having everybody cheer and be really loud motivated everyone,” he said.Looze is confident in the progress his team is making from week to week.“By February or March we’re going to end up with a great team that has a chance to be top five in NCAA’s because of what we’ve been through over the past several weeks,” he said.The women’s team earned another split this weekend, beating Kentucky handily 199-95 and losing to No. 8 Tennessee 171-123.The team was shorthanded this week with the absence of senior Kait Flederbach, who was ill. Senior Allie Day also missed practice at the beginning of the week due to illness but was still able to compete.“This was an opportunity for others to step up,” Looze said. “We showed such toughness and fought tooth and nail to the end.”Sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass, freshman Gia Dalesandro, senior Bronwyn Pasloski and senior Stephanie Armstrong opened the meet with a second-place finish in the 200-meter medley relay. The Hoosiers went 1-3 in the 100-meter backstroke with Snodgrass finishing first and Day, third.Last week’s Big Ten Freshman of the Week, Olivia Barker, was second in the 200-meter butterfly, posting a season-best time of 1:58.88.In diving, senior Kate Hillman finished second in the 3-meter competition and was third on the 1-meter.With the absence of senior diver Darian Schmidt due to injury, the men’s team had to show its depth competing against two of the top diving programs in the country.Senior Emad Abdelatif won the 1-meter springboard competition with a personal best 350.20 points. Seniors Bryce Ogden and Conor Murphy then went 2-3 in the 3-meter.“Today was a marked improvement on their consistency,” head diving Coach Drew Johansen said. “All the scores were higher than what they’ve been, and the misses they had were not substantial misses.”Looze was complimentary of the divers as well in being able to come through to help them win.“Just in general, to see IU diving show their depth and the fact that anybody can step up and get the job done against this kind of competition was great,” he said.Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(11/01/13 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This season, the men’s swimming team has experienced something it isn’t normally accustomed to. The Hoosiers have lost to their first four opponents of the season, No. 1 Michigan, No. 3 California, No. 4 Texas and No. 5 Stanford.After finishing ninth in the NCAA Championships last season, IU is now ranked No. 9. This weekend, the team hopes to bounce back as it plays host to a dual meet with Tennessee and Kentucky.IU Coach Ray Looze said he expects to see high-level competition again this weekend. He said he’s worried the Hoosiers are looking like a beatable team right now and wants to see more from his swimmers.“We definitely need to get more people able to step up while they’re working intensely,” he said. “We’re training really hard right now, but you have to assume other programs are doing the same thing.”After a positive week of practice, the No. 9 Hoosiers hope to take a step forward. This includes leading from the start of the meet and taking the momentum early.Looze said he hopes this weekend will “improve their confidence and get them turned around mentally” as they look to get back on track.He looks forward to them being able to compete again with less than a week of practice.“Both Kentucky and Tennessee are good quality SEC teams, so the fortunate thing is we get to get right back on the horse really quick,” he said.Looze’s main focus for his team this week is to be aggressive. The team remains confident in the overall progress it is making, even if the score doesn’t reflect that right now.“You’re only as good as the last thing you do,” Looze said.The women’s team is coming off a split, defeating Michigan and losing to Texas. The women are now 2-2 on the season and they face No. 8 Tennessee this weekend.Freshman Gia Dalesandro said she expects IU will see similar competition to last weekend.“I think some events we should go 1-2 in and others will be more of a fight to win, but I think we can do it,” she said. “I know we were all upset that we lost by three points to Texas, so I don’t think that’s going to happen again.”Last week, the IU women swept the Big Ten weekly awards with senior Lindsay Vrooman being named Swimmer of the Week and Olivia Barker earning Freshman of the Week honors.The team looks to build off of its successes this weekend.“We’re all mentally preparing for the challenge and getting really excited,” Dalesandro said.IU Coach Drew Johansen is looking for “overall consistency” from the divers. He said although each diver may not get a victory at each meet, the day can still be successful.“For me it’s about how they go about doing their dives, the process of the dive, more so than the outcome of the dive right now,” he said.This week in practice the team worked on the technical aspects of its dives and the Hoosiers worked to simulate a real meet situation.“This week we went back to the basics a little bit,” senior diver Darian Schmidt said. “We had two meets the past three weekends, and we just took a step back and drilled in our basics. Then we amped up the numbers and brought our hard dives in at the end of the week.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(10/30/13 3:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the second consecutive week, IU women’s swimming has swept the Big Ten Swimmer of the Week honors. Senior Lindsay Vrooman was named Swimmer of the Week, and freshman Olivia Barker was named Freshman of the Week.This is Vrooman’s first Big Ten Swimmer of the Week award. In the team’s meet against Michigan and Texas, Vrooman won both the 500-meter and 1,000-meter freestyle. She also took third place in the 200-meter freestyle.Barker’s performance last weekend made her IU’s second Freshman of the Week this season. She won the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 1:58.93, an NCAA B cut and the best time in this event by a Hoosier this year. Barker also placed fourth in the 100-meter butterfly.The week before saw sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass and Gia Dalesandro earn Big Ten Swimmer of the Week and Big Ten Freshman of the Week This weekend, the team will play host to a dual meet against Tennessee and Kentucky.— Grace Palmieri
(10/28/13 3:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>To open up their home schedules, the IU swimming and diving teams competed in a dual meet against Michigan and Texas this past weekend.The men’s swimming team struggled against the No. 1 Wolverines and No. 4 Longhorns, falling 203-97 and 204-96, respectively.On Friday, senior Cody Miller finished second in the 100-meter breaststroke, and sophomore Tanner Kurz was fourth. Miller was also third in the 200-meter breaststroke.Senior Eric Ress posted a second place finish in the 200-meter backstroke and was the top IU swimmer in the 500-meter free, finishing third.“We have to step up a little bit more against this level of competition, especially on the men’s side,” IU Coach Ray Looze said. “They know that, and they will.”The Hoosiers have faced four of the top five teams in the country this season. “They’ve got great teams, and it just sort of lets us know where we’re at against teams that are competing for national titles because that’s where we want to be at Indiana,” Looze said.On the women’s side, sophomore Brooklyn Snodgrass and freshman Gia Dalesandro each picked up two wins to lead the Hoosiers to a 181-119 win against Michigan. They fell just short against Texas, 151.5-148.5.The two were also part of the winning 200-meter medley relay team. Snodgrass posted a second place finish in the 200-meter backstroke.“Based on this weekend alone, our team had great chemistry,” she said. “We were always cheering for each other, making sure everyone was supported, and everyone usually swims pretty fast when we support each other, so the rest of the season should be pretty fun.”The team as a whole won four of the first five events and swept the distance events.“They are doing a lot of the things that a great team, a championship team, needs to do,” he said.In the diving well, senior Darian Schmidt finished third on the 1-meter, while senior Emad Abdelatif was sixth and senior Conor Murphy, seventh. Schmidt then beat out Texas’ Will Chandler to win the 3-meter competition with a score of 400.45. Murphy finished fourth, and Abdelatif was sixth.Schmidt has now won four of six events to start the season. IU Coach Drew Johansen said he wanted him to perform different dives than he had in California a couple weeks ago, as he works on putting a full list together to give him the best chance to be competitive come postseason.“Even though the results were him winning in both of the meets, I’m happy to see him do it different ways,” Johansen said.For the women’s team, senior Cassidy Kahn took fourth in the 1-meter, and senior Kate Hillman finished second in the 3-meter competition.“We had some misses in there that didn’t allow us to be higher up in the standings,” Johansen said. “But for this part of the year, I think they’re in a good place.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.
(10/25/13 4:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU swimming and diving teams open their home schedule tonight in a dual meet as they take on Michigan and Texas in the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center.The women are coming off a second place finish at the SMU Classic this past weekend, falling only to top-ranked USC.Sophomore Brooklyn Snodgrass finished first in the 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter backstroke, while also winning the 400 medley relay. Also part of that relay team was freshman Gia Dalesandro, who earned Big Ten weekly honors for her performance at the meet.IU Coach Ray Looze expects tough competition this weekend as well.“They faced some great teams,” Looze said. “We continue to put their backs against the wall.”The men’s team hopes to see improvement after two losses to California and Stanford in its season opener. This weekend presents one of the biggest challenges of their season, as they face No. 4 Texas and No. 1 Michigan, which is the defending national champion.Looze is looking for his team to take the next step against well-coached, high-ranked teams by winning more races and posting some of the better times in the NCAA.“It’s the kind of competition that I feel is important for us to go up against, so that we’re prepared for things of greater importance like NCAAs and Big Tens that happen late in the season,” Looze said.The team had just come out of its general conditioning phase and wasn’t happy with its overall performance against its first two opponents. They are now making the transition into a different training cycle with more speed and resistance training. They hope to see improvements this weekend.“There will be multiple NCAA finalists in every heat,” senior Cody Miller said. “So the fast heat from every event is basically an NCAA final.”The men’s diving team also hopes to bounce back this weekend. Senior Darian Schmidt won both the 1-meter and 3-meter events against California and defeated reigning NCAA champion Kristian Ipsen on the 3-meter at Stanford.IU Coach Drew Johansen expects big things from him, as well as senior divers Kate Hillman and Cassidy Kahn, again this weekend.“If they stay true to their technique and stay true to the process of the dive, I’ll be happy with the result,” Johansen said.Johansen is looking for consistency and for the divers to score in as many events as possible.“It’s going to be a good gage to see how we’ll match up against some of the top programs from last year,” he said.Looze agrees it’s best to be facing tough competition now in order to be the best they can be at the end of the season.“We’re trying to really dial it up a notch in terms of putting the highest level of competition in front of our swimmers and divers that we can,” Looze said. “The only ranking that really matters is the last one.”Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.