With a typical class of divers being one or two, the St. Bonaventure men’s diving team has been small the past few years. This year, however, the team grew to five members with the addition of four freshmen.
Matthew Bielobradek, Johnathan Ek, Nathan Howze and Ja’moni Wise join sophomore Michael Bruno to make up the 2018-2019 men’s diving team.
“Four in one class is a lot for diving, but so far it’s worked out well, and they’ve all been very strong right out of the gate,” head diving coach Stephanie Fleming said. “It makes me more excited for a year or two from now when they’re juniors and seniors, and they’ll be even better.”
The Atlantic 10 had been a weak diving conference, Fleming said, but in recent years has become much stronger, so the addition of the freshmen allows the Brown and White to be much more competitive.
“[Michael] Bruno did a great job last year at A10s, and he’s gotten a lot better in the last year and has been working really hard,” Fleming said. “Having five guys and bringing in another to have six next year, I think that will be the largest diving squad at A10s, which means we can be really successful and be a big part of the team.”
Another advantage to having a larger team is multiple divers practicing at once. Last season, Bruno was the only male diver; this season, he has teammates to work with.
“They’re all different personalities, they all bring something different to the table and they each have their own strengths, so they can help each other,” Fleming said. “Especially when you have a bunch of guys that are all similar talent level, they push each other to be better, and they each have things they can learn from each other.”
Bielobradek agrees having multiple teammates to work with in practice is helpful for improvement and having more divers competing makes scoring for the team more likely.
“Diving is super individual and is such a mental sport,” Bielobradek said. “You don’t always have a good meet, but having four people in one class almost guarantees that one of us will do well.”
The competition level and intensity of practice were the two biggest differences from high school Bielobradek said, along with the addition of weight conditioning.
Fleming said the only real disadvantage to having a larger team than in previous years is pool space. The Reilly Center pool only has a single one-meter and three-meter board.
“Usually schools with this large of a diving team will have an assistant coach and also have a larger pool, more boards and a separate diving well,” Fleming said.
And while not a bad thing, Fleming said she has to consider the future the size of the team once this class nears graduation. She does not want to have a small team once these four leave.
Men and women’s diving began competition yesterday at the Navy Invitational in Annapolis, Maryland. The meet continues today and wraps up Saturday.
“I just want to go there and dive my best,” Bielobradek said. “The competition is tough. I’ve never been to that pool. I’ve never competed against any of those schools, so I just want to get there and do the best I can.”
