Although the winter sports teams are slowly nearing the end of their regular seasons, the Shippensburg University men’s and women’s swim teams are expected to make waves at the upcoming Navy Invitational swim meet on Jan. 30. Head coach Tim Verge sees the Navy Invitational as the last tune-up before SU heads to the four-day PSAC meet in York beginning on Feb. 18. Freshman Shane Kaliszewski is hopeful that SU’s hard work will pay off at the conference meet. “We just completed a really great two and a half weeks of winter training, but we’ve got a lot of hard work left to do in the next few weeks before we start to rest for PSAC’s. We’re all hoping to get some really good swims at PSAC’s and with how hard we’ve been working, it’s well within our reach to do just that,” Kaliszcwski said.

Both Verge and Kaliszewski mentioned the Bomber Invitational and the George Mason Patriot Invitational as having been crucial to the team’s success, given that many swimmers performed exceptionally at those two invites.

Although swimming is categorized as a team sport, there is a lot of individual pressure placed on each team member. Verge reiterated this point when he said, “We want to make sure that we’re going in focusing on ourselves racing our races the best we can…For us to get where we want to go as a team, everybody has to be successful individually.”

Leading the men’s team into the PSAC meet are seniors Stefan Szilagyi and Jake Dunnigan, who have both earned qualifying times for multiple events. The women’s team will be led by seniors Rikki Sargent and Carolyn Meier. Well-qualified for the PSAC meet, these two individuals are school record holders as well.

Although the conference meet is less than a month away, SU swimming is far from a quiet end. Both the coach and the swimmers’ expectations are high for the conference meet, with the firm belief that both the women’s and men’s team’s performances will be better than ever. Kaliszewski spoke for his fellow teammates when he said, “We’re all really excited about taking the success we’ve had and continuing to build on it at the conference meet.” Verge echoed Kaliszewski’s excitement and anticipation: “I think we did some super things so far this year, so it will be exciting to see if we can build off of that and finish up on a great note.” 

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