By Kelsey Lynch, Swimming World College Intern
KINGSTON – This 2014-15 Atlantic 10 Conference Swimming season, another team dove into the water: Davidson Swimming.
The squad was previously a member of the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association.
Davidson’s head coach John Young says that the coaching staff is pleased with their teams’ accomplishments this season so far, and hopes his swimmers have the same confidence going into their training trip as their coaches do. Recently Davidson raced in the Total Performance Invitational in Gambier, Ohio on Dec. 4-6, with Davidson’s women’s team finishing fourth overall and the men finishing sixth. Their next meet will be while they are in Florida at the Deerfield Relays on Jan. 3.
New Waters For Davidson Swimming
At the CCSA Championships last February at the University of Tennessee, Davidson’s women finished fourth of 13 teams and their men finished third of seven teams. This February, according to a poll conducted by the league’s head coaches, Davidson’s men’s and women’s teams are predicted to finish fourth at the Atlantic 10 Championships. Both these places would prove Davidson to be strong competition and an ideal supplement to the A-10 Conference this year.
“A fourth-place finish for either team wouldn’t be an incredible debut effort,” Young said.
He believes that the poll is a flattering assessment of what his team has done in the past. But he says the predictions have very little impact on Davidson’s future this season, and looking at how well they’ve done so far, Young’s words are justified.
Multiple swimmers from Davidson have already been awarded weekly honors by the A-10, however Young stated that theses headlines don’t reveal the actual stories of success within their team. Just one example of this success is shown through Elise Lankiewicz, a sophomore from Wilmington, Del., and like her coach she has a positive mindset going forward both short and long term.
Lankiewicz has been a consistent top-performer for the women’s swimming team as a butterflyer and a freestyler this season and she’s already been awarded Performer of the Week by the A-10 twice this season. Her 200-yard butterfly is currently the fourth fastest time for the A-10, and her 500-yard freestyle, 1000-yard freestyle, and 1650-yard freestyle have all been the fastest times raced yet by any woman in the conference so far.
Lankiewicz says she is excited for some new competition now that they’re in the A-10 Conference. She hopes to perform exceptionally well in Ohio this February in order to “make a strong first impression in the conference.” She says that although they hoped to place better last February at CCSAs, Davidson had some great races at their final meet.
But last year was only Lankiewicz’s first year of college swimming last season, and she is looking forward to doing bigger things this year.
“I was really happy with my performances at CCSAs last year, but at the same time it was definitely a bit of learning experience in terms of being my first college conference meet. I’m looking forward to building off of my performances from last year,” Lankiewicz said.
But they’ve moved to a smaller, different conference and Davidson Swimming is now enthusiastic and looking solid.
“My sense is that the [A-10] championship will host a tremendous level of performance, and I hope our athletes are eager to add something to the mix,” Young said.
Both Lankiewicz and Young agree that Davidson fits well into their new conference.
“The whole Davidson community is excited to enhance the A-10’s considerable athletic tradition,” Young said.
Lankiewicz believes that the A-10 is a more proper fit compared to the CCSA for Davidson because the teams in the conference are more relative in terms of competition. According to Young, the A-10 will offer more in terms of depth compared to the CCSA, and this means “more mobility in the standings and more excitement for the team as the championship unfolds.”
Short Term
However in the short term, Davidson is looking forward to their training trip in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in a few weeks. The men and women will train south for 10 days while swimming both long and short courses. Young wants the swimmers to head into their trip healthy, both mentally and physically, and he hopes this trip will serve “as a springboard into the last month of our season.”
In Florida for Lankiewicz and her teammates, they plan to take what they just learned about themselves after their invitational at Kenyon to work and move forward while they’re south. It’s no secret that training trips are a great time for all teams, and Lankiewicz says that not only is it fun, it also focuses the mindset of the team leading up to the conference at Spire Institute in Ohio this February.
If your team is also traveling somewhere warm to train this winter, read my recent article Atlantic 10 Swimming Headed Into Winter Training Hibernation to read about the importance of training trips for other A-10 teams.
Kelsey Lynch is a senior Journalism major and Writing minor at the University of Rhode Island, swimming distance freestyle on URI’s Division I team throughout her collegiate career. Before Rhode Island, Kelsey trained at Cape Cod Swim Club in Buzzards Bay, Mass. for 10 years.