Men’s Swimming & Diving Preview
The men?s swimming and diving team is comprised of youth, and will count on freshmen to step into large roles for the team to be successful when they return to the pool at Indiana on Saturday. Despite the fact that the team only has one senior Coach Gary Conelly continues to have high expectations for his squad.
?This class (the freshman class) itself has a lot of depth and talent in it,? said Conelly. ?I think this is the best incoming class as a whole that we?ve ever had.?
Kentucky must replace Daniel Farnham and Steven Manley, two of the best swimmers ever to don the blue and white. A talented and deep group of underclassmen are excited to step into the challenge.
An advantage for the freshmen will be familiarity of their own pool when Kentucky hosts the SEC Championships in February.
?You?re comfortable with the water temperature, you?re comfortable with the way the wells are set up and you?ve been off these blocks quite a few times,? Conelly said. ?It should be a very fast and exciting meet.?
BACKSTROKE
A trio of sophomores will carry the load in the backstroke events. Shane Eliason, Joe Retrum and Sean Smith all had quality rookie seasons and contributed immediately.
Retrum and Eliason placed 14th and 16th respectively in the 100-backstroke at the SEC Championships. Smith placed 19th for the Wildcats in the same event.
Conelly feels that all three guys have talent and should improve on their scores from a year ago.
Added to the depth is junior Kristian Outinen who may see some action in the backstroke for medley relays.
BREASTSTROKE
Juniors Outinen and Will Vietti and sophomore Mickey Malul lead a talented mix of swimmers in the breaststroke discipline.
Outinen has appeared in the NCAA Championships in the breaststroke events for each of his first two seasons.
?I think he will make it back to the NCAA this year,? Conelly said. ?We really need him to score as an individual this year though.?
Although Outinen enters the season as the top breaststroker, Conelly feels Vietti will challenge him this year.
?Last year he (Vietti) missed the NCAA by the skin of his teeth, and I feel like this is his year,? Conelly said. ?If he drops (his times) half of what he dropped last year he will be way under the NCAA cuts.?
Malul joined the team in February and placed sixth in the 100-breaststroke at the SEC Championships in his first month with the team.
?He is doing a lot more dry land and volume training then he has ever done before,? Conelly said. ?It makes me excited because he is a really good sprinter and this added conditioning is only going to make him better.?
Freshman Dan Vallette will also be involved in the mix. Vallette placed third in the 100-breast at the Florida high school state meet.
BUTTERFLY
Sophomore Warren Grobbelaar and junior Grant Nelson are the leading letterwinners returning for the Wildcats.
In Grobbelaar?s rookie campaign he tapped in 15th place at the SEC Championships in the 100-fly. Conelly credits Grobbelaar?s desire to be a great teammate as one of his strengths in helping to lead the squad.
?He surpassed our expectations last year,? Conelly said. ?He understands the system now and is very excited and energetic at practice motivating the others.?
Nelson took 21st in the same event, but had a strong campaign at the Senior Nationals held in Irvine, Calif., this summer.
?He had a great summer of training and is on the edge of a breakout year in the 200-butterfly,? said Conelly.
Retrum and Eliason will also continue to see action in the discipline both of whom swam the 100-event at the SEC Championships and placed 19th and 20th respectively.
Freshmen Elvis Burrows and Travis Muzzilo may contribute in the butterfly event. Burrows holds Carifta and CISC records in the 50-fly.
FREESTYLE
Kentucky must find a way to replace seniors Daniel Farnham and Steven Manley who together amassed 29 All-America honors in their four years at UK.
In the sprint events the Cats are lead by Grobbelaar and Malul. Grobbelaar finished 23rd, while Malul captured 25th in the 50-freestyle.
Freshmen Burrows, Alex Forbes, Eric McGinnis and Kyle Greene will garner valuable roles.
Forbes is a nine-time Florida state champion and a two-time national champion in the sprint events.
?Alex is a fantastic swimmer who has had some great success,? said Conelly. ?We want to see how far he can take it.?
?Eric is very talented,? said Conelly. ?He?s got great streamline and has a great sense of what?s going on in the water. Before everything?s over he is probably going to own a few team records here.?
?Elvis is a drop dead sprinter,? Conelly said. ?He will do some good work swimming the 50 and 100.?
?Kyle definitely has the makings of an SEC scorer and a NCAA qualifier,? Conelly added.
In the middle distance to distance swims Kentucky returns a talented group of letterwinners and welcomes some promising freshmen.
Nelson, senior Eric Weber and sophomores James Batley and Vincent Toratora headline the returning veterans. Batley placed 15th in the 500-free at his first SEC Championships. Nelson tapped in 19th in the same event while Toratora turned in a 22nd place performance.
Weber endured an injury-plagued season and is looking to return to his mid-season form where he swam one of the top mile swims in the country.
?Eric wants to have a big year because he wants to prove himself, and show everyone that if he was healthy last year he would have gone far,? said Conelly.
Freshmen Marco Iemmola and Drew Robinson will also participate in the distance swims. Conelly classifies Iemmola as a ?great distance swimmer.?
?Drew will do us a lot of good in the 100, 200 and 500 range,? Conelly added.
INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY
Juniors Vietti and Outinen will be the most likely pair to see time in the individual medley events.
Outinen placed 15th at last year?s SEC Championships in the 200-individual medley.
Added to the mix this season will be Retrum with a return to the event by Weber. Weber placed 15th two seasons ago at the conference meet in the 400-IM.
RELAYS
?The class itself (of freshmen) can probably put together a pretty good 800- or 400-freestyle relay team right now,? said Conelly.
With the freshmen seemingly ready to step into the challenge of taking over the relay squads, Conelly contests his group of veterans will have competition for their spots.
?I feel the freshmen will push our older guys because there are so many that could compete on the relay teams,? Conelly said.
Outinen, Malul, Grobbelaar and Nelson have all been a part of various successful teams and will have to continue to push for their spots on the coveted teams.
DIVING
Much like the swimming team, the diving team is comprised of youth. There are two sophomores and a freshman.
Sophomores Dan Cuilla and Justin Smith will look to improve on their performances from a year ago. Cuilla grabbed 10th place at the conference championships on the one-meter while Smith finished 18th.
Freshman Tommy Palinkas joins the squad from Buffalo, N.Y., and was a member of the sectional championship team as a member of his high school squad.
?I expect my sophomores to be in the hunt in the finals of all three events at the conference championships and Tommy should score for us,? said Coach Mike Lyden.
Lyden expects that Cuilla and Smith will also be in the hunt at the NCAAs in the tower event, which he credits to be their best individual event.
Women’s Swimming & Diving Preview
LEXINGTON, Ky.? When the he 2006-07 Kentucky Wildcats open their season at Indiana on Saturday, the women are coming off the most impressive finish in school history at the NCAA Championships and return nearly the same squad. The women?s swimming and diving team placed a school-best 13th place finish at last spring?s event, which was highlighted by Taryn Ignacio being crowned a National Champion in the platform diving event.
This year?s team is hoping to push into the top-10 in the country, while remaining among one of the elite programs in the Southeastern Conference. The SEC boasts the top two teams as Auburn claimed the championship in 2006 with Georgia taking second. Kentucky will enjoy a home-pool advantage in February when it hosts the Conference Championship.
?I think we?re going to do real well, but that may not translate to being any higher in the conference, but it should transfer to being higher nationally,? said Coach Gary Conelly.
Kentucky only loses two swimmers and one diver who scored at last season?s NCAA Championships and Conelly believes he has the people to replace the missing links. The combination of depth, talent, success and team unity has the team very excited for the possibilities of this season.
?One of our strengths is everyone (the athletes) is demanding accountability from other people on the team,? said Conelly. ?Accountability forces everyone to live up to their billing and come through in their individual performances.?
DIVING
Diving sometimes is overshadowed by the multitude of swimming events, but at Kentucky it is the team?s greatest strength.
Coach Mike Lyden has enjoyed unprecedented successes the past two seasons. Two seasons ago he led a sweep of the conference meet as a UK diver took each event. Last season, his divers finished 1-2-3 in the platform event at the conference championship and had four divers place in the top seven of the other two events.
Senior Taryn Ignacio is the top returnee in a talented trio of divers. Ignacio became the school?s first national champion while setting a NCAA scoring record in the event. She also placed eighth in the one-meter event.
Senior Joey Brown earned honorable mention All-America as she placed 14th on the platform and 12th in the one-meter event. Jessica Thompson is the only loss the Wildcats face, as Thompson placed 16th in the platform at the NCAA tournament.
Junior Kari Retrum is more than capable of stepping into Thompson?s void. Retrum, just one year removed from a red-shirt season, became the first Kentucky freshman to claim an SEC diving crown when she took first her rookie season. At the 2006 SEC Championships, Retrum earned seventh on the one-meter and eighth on the three-meter.
?Two of the three girls went to NCAAs last year,? said Coach Mike Lyden. ?I really don?t expect anything less from this group. I know that they can compete and I expect them to perform the way I know they can.?
Lyden compares this talented group to his 1996 squad when all four earned All-American honors and he was named National Diving Coach of the Year.
Conelly added, ?I doubt that there is another team in the country that has three divers as good as ours. They?re going to make an enormous difference from dual meets all the way to the NCAAs for us.?
BACKSTROKE
Despite the loss of Joanna McLean, Conelly continues to see improvement from his returning backstrokers. Junior Jill Southerlan returns as the team?s top backstroke performer and is motivated to have a breakout season.
?I think this is the most motivated I?ve ever seen her since she?s been here,? said Conelly. ?I think that she?ll not only be going to the relay (at the NCAA Championships), I think she?ll make her individual cuts too.?
A surprise is waiting in the ranks of the freshmen class, Conelly insists. Chatham Penrod is a two-time Ohio high school state runner-up in the 100-backstroke event.
?She?s going to be the one to challenge and push Jill (Southernlan) for the backstroke position in the relay events,? said Conelly. ?It?s going to be a pretty interesting situation.?
Newcomer Lauren Willis, a transfer from Purdue, and freshmen Megan Pulskamp and Anna Sirmon may also contribute in the event.
BUTTERFLY
Junior Heather Bradford has emerged as one of the premier flyers in the nation. Bradford has dedicated herself to improving on her 20th place finish at last season?s NCAA Championships.
?Heather has consistently gotten a lot better,? said Conelly. ?She?s focused more and more on the butterfly events and will continue to improve.?
Senior Nikia Deveaux, an Olympic representative of the Bahamas, adds depth to the event. Also adding to the position, Conelly believes that Kelly Rames will have ?a breakout year, she?s really due for one.?
Pulskamp and Sirmon will also add depth and compete for time in the fly events. Pulskamp holds the South Carolina state high school record in the 100-fly.
BREASTSTROKE
Junior Lindsay Myhre will be asked to replace senior Laura Graham in the breaststroke event, but Conelly feels Myhre has trained well enough and is dedicated to stepping into the role.
?She was very close last year to being as fast as Laura and she?s really training great right now,? he said. ?She trained really hard last year and improved dramatically, she is going to surprise people this year.?
Junior Chelsea Bailey is the other returning veteran who will compete in the breaststroke events. The coaches will look to other returnees and some newcomers to increase depth in the event.
FREESTYLE
Much like diving, this is the one discipline that presents a tremendous strength for the 2006-07 Wildcats. The freestyle events have talent and depth from the sprint to the mile-long distance.
Junior Jenny Bradford is the top sprint returnee, after earning two individual All-American honors with a fifth and seventh place finish in the 50- and 100-freestyle respectively at the NCAA Championships.
?Her 50- and 100-free swims were really good, but I would say they were really world class swims because they caught everybody off guard,? said Conelly.
Bradford will not surprise anybody this year, but she is aiming to continue to improve on her times and her finishes.
Heather Bradford, Deveaux, Keli Hnat and Beth Parsons all add to the talent pool to the sprint events. Freshmen Christina Morgan and Sidney Witzky will contribute to the experience already in place.
Willis qualified for the individual 50-free as a freshman for Purdue. ?She?s going to have an enormous difference as a sprinter for this team,? said Conelly.
In the distance swims is a talented mix of underclassmen. Rames turned in a 16th place finish in the 500-free at the SEC Championships. Haleigh Kerns, Leah Harms, Kelly Morrison and Kristina Sledge will all compete in the mid-distance to mile events.
?I think Haleigh Kerns and Kristina Sledge are going to have big years for us,? said Conelly.
INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY
Rames and Myhre lead the swimmers in this area, who will have to replace Shantel Commander, Laura Graham and Brennan Moore.
Bailey and Blair Barrett will be asked to step into a larger role in this discipline to help add depth to the event.
Freshman Casey Miller will likely be the surprise of the group. She placed third in the Missouri high school meet in the 200-individual medley.
?She (Miller) is going to help us out a lot in this event,? said Conelly. ?She is very coach-able and has a lot of natural athletic talent.?
RELAYS
At last season?s NCAA Championships the Kentucky relay teams placed 10th in the 200-freestyle, 12th in the 200-medley and 14th in the 400-medley.
Conelly believes with the talented mix of returnees and freshmen competition may arise for the coveted relay spots. He insists that this is the area that his team will improve the most as the year progresses.
Heather and Jenny Bradford will fill half of the freestyle slots with the other spots open for grabs. Jenny Bradford will own the freestyle leg of the medley relays, with Heather enduring the butterfly area. Jill Southerlan will open the season in the backstroke slot with Lindsey Myhre occupying the breaststroke area.
