FAIRFAX, Virginia, October 2. The George Mason swimming and diving team begins the 2014-15 season on Friday, October 3 at the Potomac Relays at American University. A new season brings new goals and new challenges along with a fresh schedule and new athletes for Mason’s second year as a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference.
The men’s and women’s teams placed second at the Potomac Relays last season, combining for four first place and 11 second place finishes at the event. The Relays open a schedule that looks similar to last season, however includes competition with three additional conference opponents.
“I think it’s great, we’ve done some things similar and we’ve done some changes,” commented head coach Peter Ward on the schedule for the upcoming season. “We have a big meet down in Richmond in October, and that’s a double dual meet format. We have four women’s teams and two men’s teams, all A-10 teams, including Davidson so we will get a good idea of where Davidson is at that weekend.” The meet also includes competition with Richmond and Duquesne along with Davidson.
“Other than that it is a fairly similar schedule, work through it and get ready for A-10 Championships.”
Mason returns two of its three Atlantic 10 individual conference champions from last season: juniorMelissa Davis, winner of the 200-yard backstroke and redshirt senior Daniel Camozzo, winner of the 200-yard butterfly. Both the men and women earned top-five conference finishes, placing third and fourth overall, respectively. The program graduated several impactful seniors but has pieces in place to fill the gaps.
“Losing guys like Fernando Rubio and Joey Kelly, two of our senior guys, Nick Guttendorf, were big scorers and important guys to our team,” Ward said. “But in that you have guys that are on your team already that are ready to step up and fill those roles. Guys like William Clendenin, ready to step in for Fernando and then a great core of freshman on the men’s side that we are real excited about and have already started to make their mark on our program in practice and are certainly making the upper classmen well aware that they are there.”
“On the women’s side losing Paige Impink was huge, a huge performer for us and school record holder and conference champion and everything else, so that’s some big shoes to fill,” continued Ward. “But again we have some people inside of our program that are ready to step up and then again a really nice freshman core that I think will be able to fill those holes and even more than that, move forward.”
Ward and the rest of the coaching staff are excited about the incoming freshman class and what they can do for the program.
“The freshmen class is awesome, both men and women,” commented Ward. “On the men’s side some great middle distance guys, some guys that swim events that we’ve done really well in with the 200 fly and the 400 IM and the mile, and then a couple of really good sprinters with it. They’ve already been stepping up in practice and making their presence known so I think they’re going to have a huge impact on our program. It’s a big, strong class.”
“The women’s side, same thing,” continued Ward. “A little bit different with the kinds of events that they swim, some more breaststroke and IM that we have holes in that we tried to fill, but some terrific kids. Amy Tansill, her older sister Kara is a senior with us, she’s a freshman now and as a junior (in high school) she was a Virginia state champion in the 100 breaststroke; a big impact on our program in a place where we actually needed some help so the class looks really good coming in.”
The Patriots have four meets at home this season, including their second dual of the season vs. Delaware on October 25 and a quad meet for the second consecutive season with Towson, College of Charleston and Northeastern on October 31 and November 1. Mason has a home meet on January 17 with the opponent to-be-announced and hosts the annual Patriot Invitational from November 20-22. Both the men’s and women’s programs placed first at last year’s competition for the first time in program history.
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