The 2016-2017 men’s and women’s swimming and diving season has come to an end after last weekend’s SUNYAC Championships meet. The men’s team finished in fifth place, while the women’s team finished in sixth place.
Head coach Mike Holman was pleased with how the men’s team swam at SUNYAC and figured that his team would probably place either fifth or sixth.
“I was pretty happy with the performance, I thought they all swam pretty well,” Holman said. “Obviously you want to place as high as you can, but I pretty much figured we would place in that spot.”
Holman was impressed with how Alex Davie, Nick Webber, Daniel Rodriguez and Jacob Mullett swam over the weekend and credited them as to why Oswego State finished well in the meet.
Rodriguez concluded his first season as a Laker and finished it on a high note. Rodriguez won the mile race in the pool, posting a time of 16:03.15. The next closest swimmer was from SUNY Geneseo, who finished 15 seconds behind Rodriguez.
“He had a really good meet, but I still think there is a lot of upside to [Rodriguez],” Holman said. “Once he improves he is probably going to be on a whole different level.”
Holman made it clear that winning an event at the SUNYACs was something the Lakers were hoping would happen sometime soon.
“Winning an event at the tournament was big for us,” Holman said. “It’s been years since we have had a winner at this event, so that was huge for us and I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
Holman was equally pleased with the women’s team. He said he believed they would finish anywhere from fifth to seventh in the SUNYAC.
“Sixth place was the most likely spot,” Holman said. “Brockport beat us out by just a few points, but they scored a ton of points in diving which hurt us in the end.”
Sophomore Riley Synan came in second place in both butterfly events getting touched out by 0.04 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly and a half second in the 200-yard butterfly. Holman was also very impressed with the underclassmen swimmers on the team.
“Our freshmen had an amazing meet and I was super impressed with them,” Holman said. “I was real happy with how everyone swam, it was good to see.”
There is always room for improvement when it comes to preparing for the following season and Holman believes the Lakers can improve greatly from this season to next.
“Our goal is to be better and that’s what it always is and will be,” Holman said. “If that’s what they want to do they are going to have to commit to being more of a year-round athlete instead of being a sixth-month athlete.”
Holman indicated that a key aspect to improving each season is bringing in a quality group of recruits to help build the program and 2016 was a perfect example of that.
“We have to bring in a good recruiting class next year and I believe we will,” Holman said. “We have some good ones coming up.”
