Swimming teams travel to Durham

The Boston University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams travel to Durham to take on the University of New Hampshire on Saturday.

This is the first meet of the season for the men, who are coming off a championship season in the America East Conference last year. They would like to pick up where they left off last season against a New Hampshire team that has struggled with a record of 0-2 so far.

The BU coaching staff remains in tact and ready to lead them to another winning campaign. Head Coach Reagh Wetmore was named the America East Conference Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year last season, and Agnes Miller was honored as Diving Coach of the Year.

Wetmore knows defending a conference title won’t be easy.

‘It will probably be a little more difficult this season,’ he said. ‘The other teams in the conference have picked up their recruiting.’

In addition to fighting increased competition, the team will have to compensate for the loss of star swimmer David Rozardo, who was named the America East Scholar Athlete for men’s swimming last year, as well as former captain Jeff Graves.

‘We lost two outstanding swimmers, but we think we got four outstanding swimmers,’ Wetmore said.

The four swimmers expected to come up big this season include freshmen sprinters Edward Kelly and Mike McGrath, sophomore freestyle swimmer Ian Chamberland, and freshman backstroke swimmer Ryan Falk.

‘We needed a good breaststroke swimmer really really badly, and we got one [in Falk],’ Wetmore said.

Sophomore diver Victor Paquia will be looking to build on a stellar freshman season, and sophomore backstroke and individual medley swimmer Chris Collins will also look to add more wins after a dominant freshman campaign.

The meet this weekend will be the second of the season for the BU women’s team. They are looking to build on a number of good performances from last weekend’s opener against Northeastern University. Despite losing the meet, there were some encouraging signs for the team.

‘We still are better than we showed in that meet,’ Wetmore said.

The women will get a chance to prove that against an undefeated New Hampshire team (2-0).

BU hopes to get strong performances from its freshmen class, who made their presence known last weekend. Meagan Breiland won the 100-meter freestyle with the second-fastest time in BU history.

Freshman Natalie Boyd also came up with a big win in the 200-meter freestyle.

‘It was a tight race, but she managed to pull out a win with a really good time,’ Wetmore said.

Sophomore diver Silvia Golle also did her best to help the team. She won both the one-meter and three-meter diving events in her BU debut.

‘She’s a sensational diver,’ Wetmore said. ‘No one was even close to her.’

If the team get the same strong performances from newcomers and veterans like captain Karissa Lopez and Ingrid Salazar, Wetmore is confident that they can pull out their first win of the season.