The Ashland University swim and dive team is ready to dive into its second season of being in the GMAC.

After a good start in the GMAC last season getting second and third in the men’s and women’s sides the eagle swimmers hope to keep up the good work and improve. 

For sophomore Joseph Cummings, this means getting his best times in the 50-meter free, back, and 100-meter free.

“I would like to place on the podium again this year for the 400 individual medley and the 200 breaststroke,” said senior Sydney Laughlin. 

“The main focus this year is to go in and have a better showing,” said Head Coach Kyle Walthall. 

With a very large Freshman group of seventeen coming in, Walthall has had the responsibility of teaching them the values of the program and preparing them for their first swim meet. The older swimmers like senior Laughlin want to see them thrive. 

“Preparation has been intense from the start of this year. Coach Kyle has us doing a lot of test sets early on this year so he can get a solid baseline to see how we can improve,” said Cummings. “This includes gathering heart rates and lactate to create paces for training.”

With the swimmers being excited to take on their second season in the GMAC, Walthall is excited to get this season started with a new invitational meet they added this year. He explained this will a meet to get everyone back into that competitive style of racing. 

Coach Walthall has said to watch out for his swimmers senior Abby Locke and senior Amar Sapcanin. 

On the diving side, they have high goals and coach Walthall has said to watch out for freshman Joey Lenczyk.

Both Coach Walthall and Cummings highly recommend that the Ashland community comes and supports the team. 

“Come out to our home meets and see what swimming is all about. We feed off of the energy from the stands,” said Cummings.

Ashlands first meet starts with the Oberlin early bird invitational that will be held on Oct. 15 in Oberlin it starts at 10 a.m.