The Massachusetts men’s swimming and diving team’s season is underway and one swimmer that looks to carry over success from last year is Alessandro Bomprezzi.
Entering his junior season, Bomprezzi looks to add to his impressive resume that includes being named team MVP last year and owning the school record in three different freestyle events.
Last season was a coming out party for Bomprezzi, who emerged as one of UMass’ strongest swimmers. The junior finished toward the top in the majority of his events, including winning gold in the 50-meter freestyle and bronze in the 1650-meter freestyle events at the Atlantic 10 Championship and breaking his own school record in the 1000-meter freestyle event against Fordham on Feb. 1.
Bomprezzi joined the Minutemen as a freshman in fall 2012 from his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona. When asked why he chose a school on the opposite side of the country he said, “Well UMass offers everything I need both academically and athletically. The engineering program has been growing in the past few years and that caught my attention.”
Now a veteran, Bomprezzi said it is important to him and his team that he continues to emerge as a leader. According to men’s swimming coach Russ Yarworth, Bomprezzi has done just that.
“He’s worked hard in practice and has stepped up for this team,” Yarworth said. “He’s setting a good example for the younger guys.”
The swimming team has lost a couple of seniors from last year and is currently dealing with injuries. According to Bomprezzi, this means that younger guys are going to have to step up and swimmers that have been there, like Bomprezzi, have increased pressure put on them to lead.
But according to Bomprezzi, he isn’t feeling that pressure just yet.
“I don’t feel pressure being the leader for the new swimmers,” he said. “There’s a huge difference between high school swimming and college swimming and I feel that I am guiding the newer members of our team in the right direction, showing them the importance of coming together as a team.”
Bomprezzi added that he has used his experience as a teaching tool.
“My greatest piece of advice is to keep pushing,” Bomprezzi said. “It’s easy to slack off or not try as hard but then the reward is much less that it would have been. Swimming is a sport that requires a lot of focus and I feel I have developed this aspect throughout my time at UMass.”
In addition to leading his teammates, Bomprezzi said he has set high expectations for himself this season.
“For the team, I am confident we can take back the title as A-10 champions and put a number back on the banner,” he said.
The 2014-2015 season didn’t exactly start out the way Bomprezzi would have wanted, as the Minutemen lost their first two matches of the season against Army and Boston University. But Bomprezzi started right where he left off last season, as he won both the 500 and 1000-meter freestyle events in each matchup.
Bomprezzi said he wants people to know that last year wasn’t a fluke and that he’s motivated to continue to build on his success. When asked what it felt like to win the team MVP award, Bomprezzi answered with determination.
“It just pushes me even harder and I want to show that I deserve getting this award,” he said.
Bomprezzi and the rest of the men’s swimming and diving team return to action Oct. 31 when they travel to Binghamton looking for its first win of the season.
Victor Pusateri can be reached at [email protected].
