Diving into the 2014 season, Denver’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams have gone undefeated in all of their scored matches so far in their dual meet season.
On Oct. 30, the men’s swimming and diving won seven of fifteen events in an unscored training competition against the University of Wyoming.
“We have been swimming really, really well so far. Both the women and the men’s team have really stepped up in some big meets and have raced hard,” said junior swimmer Ashley Taylor.
DU’s men’s swimming team was recently ranked no. 24 by the CSCAA DI Poll Committee among the top Division I teams. They were also ranked no. 26 in the College Swimming Top D-1 Teams poll with 841.556 points. The women’s swimming team was ranked no. 35 with 888.296 total points.
“I think that we’ve done really well in our dual meets so far, we’ve won all of them,” said junior swimmer Morgan Mullenix. “We also beat Kansas and Missouri State at Kansas, which we are really proud of. Our team is very strong this year.”
Denver swimming and diving has been training since the first week of September and are looking to go undefeated in their dual meet season. Denver is also hopeful to win the Summit League Conference for their second consecutive year.
In the event on Oct. 30, the Pioneers took the top three finishes in the 1650 freestyle and the 200 butterfly.
Summit League Swimmer of the Week junior Dylan Bunch came in first for the freestyle event with a time of 16:01.15. Bunch was followed by Pioneer senior Jeremiah Zgliczynski and freshman Alex Walton.
“They did well at attacking their races, they were swimming some of their off events because the meet wasn’t technically being scored,” said Mullenix. “My coach wants them to improve their underwaters and going out faster.”
Senior Ross Edfort led the diving team by taking first in the 1-meter and 3-meter events. Edfort was also awarded his fifth Summit League’s Diver of the Week award last week.
“Just a good opportunity for us to get up and practice what we’ve been trying to do with our training,” head swim coach Brian Schrader said. “I think we spread out and swam some events pretty well and we are just kind of moving forward in our training cycle.”
Both teams have been working on transitioning training over into their competitions.
“We have been building up our yardage and strength the past couple weeks, getting ready for our winter invitational in November and moving into winter training, which is the most intense training,” Taylor said.
Denver will be on the road for their next two events. The men will travel to Las Vegas to challenge University of Nevada- Las Vegas on Nov. 7 and the women will head to the Air Force Academy to swain against Air Force and Grand Canyon University on Nov. 8.
“I think this year we have amped up our training a lot earlier and that definitely has been showing in our meets as of recently,” said Taylor. “We want to win the Summit League Conference title again this year.”
