The Wisconsin Men’s swimming and diving team travels to Long Island, New York for the weekend to participate in the NCAA National Championships. The team enters the championships 11th in the latest CSCAA poll, attempting to improve upon last year’s 13th place finish.
This year’s squad returns six of the seven members from last year’s team. They also return all the members from four out of their five relay teams. With a core group of guys returning, the team is poised for their first national top ten finish since 1968.
“We’re aiming to be top 10,” coach Eric Hansen said. “Our goal is the same as it was for the women’s team last weekend. We accomplished that and we’re looking forward to the guys doing the same.”
The team enters the tournament on the heels of a fifth place finish at the Big Ten Championships. While the finish may seem disappointing for most, coach Hansen attributes it to a greater focus on the National Tournament.
“We didn’t prepare fully for the Big Ten Championships, and I think you can see that in our finish and a lot of our relays.”
Although the relays fell short at the Big Ten’s they remain the key component to this year’s top-10 run. The lone loss from last year’s relay teams was senior Matt Zuiderhof on the 800 free relay. His replacement will be junior Tim Leibhold, the only member of this year’s team without any previous NCAA experience.
Leibhold stepped into the role this year, and the 800 relay squad never missed a beat. They trail their time at last year’s Nationals by a mere 53-tenths of a second. Being able to send all the relay teams to nationals for a second straight year is testament to the athletes as well as the coaches. Coach Hansen believes placing the relays is integral to the success of the team.
“That’s key,” he said. “When I got here that was the primary goal: to qualify all the relays number one, and then to score them number two. Then eventually to score them all top eight, we’re not quite there yet, but we’ve accomplished the first two.”
Both the 200-yard free relay and the 200-yard medley relay teams are well on their way to accomplishing that feat. Both relays already broke their NCAA times from a year ago, displaying the team’s ability to improve upon last year’s finishes of 10th for the free relay, and 11th for the medley relay.
Along with the great relay teams, the Badgers also boast several outstanding individual performers. All-American senior Matt Marshall returns after posting top 15 finishes in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke a year ago.
Junior All-American Adam Mania continues his breakout year this weekend. Mania enters the tournament as the highest ranked individual on the team, with an eighth-place ranking in the 100-yard backstroke. He is also 13th in the 200-yard backstroke and 18th in the 200-yard individual medley.
All-Americans Dale Rogers, Eric Weisner, Pat Torpey and Kevin Zakrzewski all return in hopes adding individual All-American honors to compliment relay team honors last year.
However, the greatest help to the team comes in their one month layoff between the Big Ten’s and Nationals.
“We cut down,” Hansen said. “Our sprinters cut down to one workout four times a week and two workouts twice a week. That’s really helped them come around and gain back, what I consider some of their athleticism. We beat them hard for eleven months to get here, the rest is something we really needed to reach our goals for this tournament.”
With a considerable amount of experience on the team — they all are juniors or seniors — as well as an array of All-Americans, the team contains all the ingredients needed for a top ten finish. Something, even with the experience on the team, none of them have seen.
