By Nick Konotopskyj
Staff Writer
The St. Bonaventure men’s swimming and diving team had at least a share of the lead for three out of the four days at the Atlantic 10 Championships, but the one day they did not have the lead ended up being the most important day of all- the final day.
The University of Massachusetts Minutemen took home the A-10 Championship by 20.5 points over the Bonnies, who finished second out of eight teams. UMass, who trailed by over 40 points going into the last day of competition, was able to overcome that deficit and stun the Bonnies.
“The distance events definitely hurt us, which happened to be UMass’ strongest events,” junior Thomas Caulfield said. “[Alex] Marra dove amazing for us, but we needed more divers. We technically out swam them, but they just had more kids on the board.”
The Bonnies only have two divers on their roster, while UMass tripled that with six. That proved to be a major reason why UMass came out on top.
Caulfield, a junior political science major from Northport, NY, had personal bests in his events which included the 500-meter freestyle, the one mile and the 200-meter butterfly.
“A good amount of kids had lifetime bests in all of their events, which is good to see,” Caulfield said, “But we did have some disappointing swims with kids, and a big problem we had going in was that a good amount of our team was sick the week before, which really hurts at the end of the year.”
Along with Caulfield, the Bonnies got strong performances out of sophomore Michael White (200IM), sophomore Preston Schilling (100-meter breaststroke) , sophomore Matt Goettler (100 breaststroke), junior Michael Pilyugin (100 meter backstroke), and the 400-meter medley relay team that demolished last year’s conference record.
Although the Bonnies’ season did not end the way they wanted, things are looking up for next year, according to Caulfield.
“We are losing some important players, but we ended up finishing the year ranked 27th in the country,” Caulfield said. “With the incoming recruits and foreign prospects, we will be bringing in a ton of talent. We have a very motivated team after suffering that loss, so everyone is ready to start grinding out for next year. We should have a team that is ready to take back that title.”
UMass finished with 589.5 points, then came the Bonnies with 569 points, George Mason at 525, La Salle at 449.5, and Saint Louis at 415, rounding out the top five teams.
The seniors that are graduating for the Bonnies are Ripley Danner, Nathan Earl, Vatslav Lets and Matthew Rochna.
However, experience is an area in which the Bonnies will hope to take advantage of next season as they will have 14 upperclassmen in total.
With Coach Sean McNamee going into his 23rd season at the helm, the Bonnies will look to get revenge for this year’s second place finish. So in eight months’ time, when the Bonnies are back competing once again, they will look to make a serious run for the A-10 crown.
