The swim team will kick off their season on Friday at the
Potomac Relays at American University. The men's and women's teams both came
away with second place finishes at the event last season.
The men are expecting to lean heavily on the contributions
of senior diver Bryan Bahr, senior Preston Wolter swimming the free and IM and
fellow senior Austin Witherow swimming the free and fly.
Bahr is a two time CAA Diver of the Year and has finished
first in the 3 meter dive at the CAA Championships in each of first three seasons
at Mason. Last year he also posted a
fifth place finish in the 1-meter dive with 296.25 points. The senior also qualified for the NCAA Zone A
Diving Championship placing fourth in the 3-meter dive and eighth in the
1-meter dive. Bahr was honored as CAA Men's Diver of the Week three times
last season.
Preston Wolter and Austin
Witherow return to the team after posting impressive results at last year's CAA
Championships. Wolter and Witherow tied
as the top point receivers at the event, posting 60 points each. Wolter
finished first in the 1650-yard freestyle for the third consecutive year with a
time of 15:25.84. For the entire Championship he posted first place finishes in
every individual event he took place in, including the 1650 free as well as 500-yard
freestyle when he recorded a time of 4:22.44 and the 400-yard IM with a time of
3:50.92.
Austin Witherow also finished first
in every individual event he competed in, putting up first place finishes in
the 200-yard butterfly finishing the event in a time of 1:48.54, the 100-yard
butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke with times of 48.44 and 49.25,
respectively. All three of his times set a new team records.
Mason also has a strong group of
underclassmen, led by sophomores Fernando Rubio, who was named CAA Men's
Co-Rookie Swimmer of the Year last season and Frank Burdell, who was named CAA
Men's Rookie Diver of Year. The men also feature nine freshman, including
Steven Blakely who will swim the backstroke and breastroke this season.
The women's swimming
team was originally scheduled to open its season at the Potomac Relays, but the
Athletic Department has made the decision to withdraw the team from Friday's
meet as well as the competition scheduled against Navy and Loyola on October 8
at Loyola.
The meet is scheduled to begin at
3pm on the campus of American University.
