Women’s Swimming Set To Open Season – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/26/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swim & Dive
Oct. 26, 2000
COLUMBUS, Ohio – – The Ohio State Women’s swim team opens the 2000-01 season this Saturday in Athens, Ohio vs. Ohio.
Fleck Maps Out Season Goals
Entering her second year at the helm of the Ohio State women’s swimming program, Jeanne Fleck, women’s swimming head coach, has mapped out four goals for her team: *First, to improve times and have swimmers qualify for the NCAA Championships. *Second, to improve the team’s conference standing. *Third, to improve OSU’s record in dual meets. * Fourth, to bring the team together as a solid unit.
A Pair of Olympic Qualifiers
Kristen Sendrowski (Jr., Garden City, N.Y./H. Frank Carey), who was named co-most valuable swimmer last year, is expected to be a major factor at the Big Ten Championships this year. Also expected to perform well is Erica Staley (So., Piqua, Ohio/Piqua), who was last year’s OSU women’s swimming freshman of the year.
Sendrowski had team best times in the 200 Butterfly (2:01.58), 200 individual medley (2:06.38) and the 400 individual medley (4:28.14) and qualified for the Olympic Trials in the 200 Fly.
Staley finished fourth in the 100 breastroke at the Big Ten championships with her top time of 1:03.74. The time also qualified her for the Olympic trials. Her personal and team-best time of 2:22.14 in the 200 breaststroke came at the championships as well.
Captains Named
Jo Jo Baran (Sr., Danville, Calif./San Ramon Valley) and Sara Nigh (Sr., Freestyle, Bucrus, Ohio/Colonel Crawford) were named co-captains of the 2000-01 women’s swim squad.
Nigh will be looked upon to lead in the freestyle events. Baran is a valuable point scorer in the individual events and as a member of the relay teams.
Inagural Recruiting Class
Fleck’s first recruiting season at OSU is an extremely busy one. Fleck has added 12 new swimmers to the squad in the offseason (11Freshman, transfer).The class includes Camilla Heglesson (Fr., Malmo, Sweden/Malmo-Borgarhola) and Amanda Treleaven (Fr., Colonal Light, Australia), both of whom bring plenty of national expericence to the OSU program. Heglesson has competed in 10 World Cup competitions and Treleaven placed seventh at the World Cup last year in the 50, 100 and 200 backstroke events in Hobart.
Also in the highly touted class is Lindsey Goodson (Fr., San Ramon, Calif./Carondelet), who earned high school All-America honors in both the 200 and 500 freestyle events in 1999 and 2000. She placed sixth in the 500 and in the 200 at the 2000 Junior Nationals. Lindsay Hartman (Fr., Mission Viejo, Calif./Mission Viejo) was a four-year high school All-America selection and qualified for five Junior National Standards
On The Boards
Once again, big things are expected from the women’s diving team. Last year, the Buckeyes won both springboard events at the Big Ten Championships, out-scoring all other schools by a landslide margin. Panzano is expecting the 2000-01 season to be even more impressive.
Panzano returns Holly Underwood (Jr., Conroe, Texas/Oak Ridge), Melanie Johnson (Jr., Boca Raton, Fla./Olympic Heights) and Jillian Cicione (So., Plantation, Fla.) who all had impressive campaigns that were highlighted at the Big Ten Championships.Underwood won the three-meter dive and placed seventh in the one-meter event at the Championships. Johnson placed third in the one-meter event and seventh in the three-meter dive, respectively. Cicione placed eighth in the three-meter event.
Natalia Diea (Jr., Austin, Texas/Texas University), a transfer from Texas, was the 1999 NCAA bronze medalist on the platform.
Leah Kolb (Jr.,. Mansfield, Ohio/Mansfield Sr.) and Henna Fortang (So., Highland Beach, Fla./St. Thomas Aquinas) add depth on the boards and are all expected to have their best seasons.
A New Home
The aquatic program is building a new home. The planning for a new complex has been completed with the design stage well underway. The new facility will feature a 10-lane, 50 meter by 25 meter competition pool that will allow 1,500 spectators a bird’s eye view while seating an additional 1,000 people on the pool deck. Also featured will be a separate diving well with a tower.
The team is hoping to see a picture of what the aquatic center could look like by mid-season. They are still a year away from breaking ground, but hope to have the complex completed between September 2003 and January 2004.
Next Up
The Buckeyes travel to Morgantown,West Virginia, next Friday to face West Virginia at 6 p.m.
