VMI Swimming and Diving Teams Open Season this Weekend
LEXINGTON, Va. - The VMI men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams open their 2018-19 seasons this weekend, with two days of competition on the schedule.
The campaign opens Friday at the Loyola University (Md.) tri-meet, facing Loyola and American University at the Mangione Pool at the Fitness and Aquatic Center. The action begins at 4 p.m.
The Keydets host Mount St. Mary’s University Saturday, one of VMI’s two home meets this fall, at the Clark King Pool.
“This weekend we are facing some really strong teams that will give us good competition and racing,” said head coach Andrew Bretscher. “American has some strong talent, so we will have to race hard to out touch them in order to come away with the victory. Loyola is really fast and deep, so we are looking to keep ourselves in the race against them and get some victories in the process. We were able to do that against them last year and we even came away with some school records, so I’m hoping for a similar scenario this year. We swam Mount St. Mary’s twice last year, and our men won one and lost one, and both meets came down to just a few points. I expect it to be the same this year. All of the competitions this weekend will come down to the wire, so focus and consistency will be key if we want to walk away with wins. If we execute and keep the momentum in our favor throughout the entire weekend, I think we will be hard to stop.”
Friday Schedule at Loyola
400 Medley Relay
1000 Free
200 Free
100 Back
100 Breast
200 Fly
50 Free
1 Meter Diving
100 Free
200 Back
200 Breast
500 Free
100 Fly
3 Meter Diving
200 IM
200 Free Relay
Saturday Schedule vs. Mount St. Mary’s
200 Medley Relay
1000 free
200 free
50 free
200 IM
1 Meter Diving
100 Fly
100 Free
100 Back
500 Free
3 Meter Diving
100 Breast
200 Free Relay
“We are on week six of our season and everything has started to come together in the past couple weeks,” said Bretscher. “We’ve been looking faster and more fit in the pool each day, and I know the team is eager to start racing other teams. We are returning a strong group of men and women who have a lot of experience competing at this level. They know that they have to put everything into each race in order to contest for wins. They will be integral in leading the team because we have a large freshman class that doesn’t have any collegiate competitive experience, but will need to push themselves just as hard as the returners.”
