The UMass men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will travel to Providence this Saturday where they’ll compete in a tri-meet against Brown and Yale.
The Minutemen are coming off a 165-135 win at Boston University last Saturday where efforts from juniors Oliver Wyeth and Owen Wright propelled them to an early season victory.
Wyeth won three individual events at the meet, placing first in the 1000-meter freestyle, the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter backstroke while Wright won the 50-meter freestyle.
After winning the 1000-meter race, Wyeth was back in the pool just 10 minutes later when he won the 100-meter backstroke. UMass coach Russ Yarworth, who has led the men’s program to 16 Atlantic 10 championships in his 37-year career, called Wyeth’s performance, “one of the best doubles [he’s] seen in a while.”
Heading into the weekend, the team is in the middle of an extremely heavy training cycle. Yarworth is happy with how the team is working in and out of the pool and feels, “[they’re] right on track with where [they] need to be”.
Although a win is still important on Saturday in Rhode Island, the team’s main goal is to “train through this cycle so [they’re] ready for the Terrier Invitational,” which takes place in Boston later in the month from the Nov. 18 through Nov. 20.
The team looks prepared with the season entering its full swing as Yarworth conveyed with a smile.
“I’ve got a great group of guys,” he said. “We’ve got a great team dynamic and things are looking good.”
Minutewomen look to keep improving during Saturday’s meet
The Minutewomen head into Saturday’s tri-meet without a win on the young season, after dropping their first two contests to Army and Boston University in October.
In the 174-121 loss to BU last Saturday, sophomore Ansley Baker won the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:06.28. The victory tallied her fourth individual event win of the season, three of them coming at the Colgate Fall Classic earlier in the month.
Baker’s wins in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter breaststroke and the 200-meter breaststroke awarded her the A-10 women’s Performer of the Week last week.
“What fun it is watching an athlete like [her] who came in and worked so hard,” UMass coach Bob Newcomb said. “She had a good freshman year, made the commitment in the offseason and is having a great start to her sophomore year.”
In the BU meet, junior Emma Roush also put together an impressive performance, taking first in the one- and three-meter dives.
“We’ll be racing against some of the best competition [we’ll] face all year,” Newcomb said of Brown and Yale.
Holcomb believes that because swimming and diving are such sports of improvement and progression, “everything [the team] does, from trying to get the swimmers to try different warm-ups to getting them to participate in multi-day events,” is in preparation for being the best they can be for the conference meet.
On Saturday in Rhode Island, the women look to put together a good team performance and keep improving on the season which still has eight meets to go before February.
Liam Flaherty can be reached at [email protected]
