Players Mentioned
Swimming & Diving Spotlight: Women's Newcomers
2/13/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
The 2015 BIG EAST Swimming & Diving Championships pres. by New York Life are fast approaching. Last season, the Pirates earned program records of seven individual gold medals and 15 All-Conference honorees, sweeping the diving titles and awards in historic fashion in the process. This year, SHUPirates.com will take you up to the conference meet with a series of features exploring The Hall's continued success.
Today, we look at the stellar freshmen class that will play a major role for The Hall in its championship pursuits next week.
PART I: ZOHAR SUSLOVICH
By any measure, the Seton Hall women's swimming & diving program took a giant step forward in 2013-14. In the first year of a revamped BIG EAST landscape, the Pirates went to the conference championship and placed fourth as a team but both the Most Outstanding Diver and Most Outstanding Swimmer awards on the women's side came back to South Orange.
SHU landed eight performers on the All-BIG EAST list, six of which returned to suit up for The Hall yet again this season.
The hallmark of a successful program however is sustained excellence and while the Pirates returnees have continued to thrive, one of the undoubted highlights of the regular season has been the immediate impact that an influx of five rookie swimmers has had on the squad. With the 2015 BIG EAST Championships just days away, it is clear that a youth movement at The Hall is going to be a clear driver behind the Pirates' effort to earn a spot at the top of the podium.
The numbers speak for themselves. The squad's top three scorers on the women's side are all in the midst of their debut campaign and all five freshmen swimmers rank among the top-eight on the team overall.
Between them, Seton Hall's freshmen recorded nearly 25 individual victories in the pool and have contributed five event times that are seeded among the top-eight performers in the league heading into the conference meet.
Even more impressively, their level of performance has not wavered over the course of a grueling competition season. As a group, they came in and asserted themselves in the opener against Montclair State and remained pacesetters for The Hall throughout 10 competitions.
"I'm very pleased with where the freshmen are at this point in the year," said head coach Ron Farina. "They have hit their qualifying times and will be a part of the championship scoring squad so by that measure, they have already succeeded to a certain degree. I expect them to be scorers in a majority of their events as well as adding to relays."
Now, as they gear up for their first trip to the championship stage, lets take a closer look at the newcomers who could very well be headliners next week in Ithaca.
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Kylene Ronayne
One of three freshmen that posted a victory in their first collegiate meet for the Seton Hall women, Ronayne's showing against Montclair State was a precursor to what has been a tremendous rookie season. The Springfield native finished atop the team's points rankings, matching the team-high with eight individual victories. Ronayne posted a pair of victories in her first taste of BIG EAST competition, helping power a rout of Providence but her true breakout performance came following the winter break.
Against Iona, she recorded a meet-best three individual wins, a dominant day that earned her the Pirates' lone BIG EAST Women's Swimming & Diving Athlete of the Week award this season. Ronayne missed adding another trifecta against Marist by a mere .4 seconds, finishing as the runner-up in the 500-free race after winning the 200-free and 200-IM.
Ronayne owns the top Seton Hall time in three different events this season, including the 200-back where her time of 2:03.95 at the Patriot Invitational ranks seventh in the BIG EAST. She is also among the top-10 in the league in the 200-IM (2:08.40, Patriot Invitational - 9th) and is the Pirates top seed in the 200-free (1:54.25, Patriot Invitational - 12th).
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Sydney Simpson
Perhaps the Pirates most consistent swimmer in 2014-15, Simpson tied for second among freshmen with six individual victories but posted team-highs of 14 top-two and 19 top-three performances. The native Floridian hit the ground running with a 200-breast victory in her first collegiate meet and went on to add three more prior to the winter break.
Simpson was an integral part of the Pirates 6-0 start to the season, combining with fellow newcomer Courtney Regan to post three runner-up times as SHU swept Drexel, Lafayette and the host Greyhounds at a quad meet hosted by Loyola (MD). Though she picked up her share of victories, Simpson's most impressive performance may have come at former BIG EAST foe Connecticut where she turned in three runner-up efforts against a Huskies team that boasts a top-eight performer in the American Athletic Conference in 10 of 13 individual championship events.
Simpson will enter the conference meet seeded in the top-six of three different events including the breaststroke races that were swept by Kerrie Kolackovsky last February. She is one of two Pirates in the top-four of the 100-breast rankings (1:05.34, Patriot Invitational - 4th) and owns a team-best time of 2:22.67 at 200 yards that doubles as the third-fastest mark in the conference this season.
In the 100-fly, she stands sixth in the BIG EAST with a season best time of 56.94 (Patriot Invitational) once again comprising one-half of a Pirate duo among the top-eight.
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Kat Carson
It is not often in any sport at the collegiate level that a freshman comes in and immediately establishes themselves as the top performer on the squad in any one area but that is exactly what Texas product Kat Carson has done. Carson has more than capably filled a void at the top of the sprint freestyle lineup for Coach Farina and has become a mainstay on The Hall's top relay squads as well.
Carson put her speed on display for the first time with a 50-free victory in the opener and went on to record five more individual wins across four different dual meets. Her exploits this season have elevated The Hall's level of competitiveness in short-distance events by a wide margin. One very clear manifestation of that fact is that Carson's season-best time of 23.92 in the 50-free is not only within .2 seconds of a 12-year-old school record but ranks ninth in the BIG EAST.
By comparison, SHU's top-seeded entrant into the 50-free at last season's conference championship owned the 20th fastest time in the league during the regular season.
The former Cinco Ranch standout has also excelled at 100 yards, posting two wins in the event while also turning in the top time on the squad to this point in the year; clocking in at 52.94 during the Patriot Invitational.
She has also made pivotal contributions to four of SHU's top relay performances, kicking-off the Pirates' fastest 200-free relay performance, swimming third on the fastest 400-free relay and anchoring both the standard setting 200 and 400-medley relay teams.
Carson was joined by Ronayne on the quickest 200-free relay team while Simpson was part of the 200-medley squad that holds the standard as well.
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Courtney Regan
Just as Carson has helped improve the Pirates' sprint freestyle presence, Courtney Regan has helped transform the distance freestyle contingent. Regan collected nearly 10 top-three performances in her first season for the blue & white, adding three victories of her own.
Her first collegiate victory came in the 500-free against Rider, an event which she also boasts the top performance on the team in 2014-15. She completed 500 yards in 5:05.78 at the Patriot Invitational, the 12th ranked time in the conference heading into next week.
Regan joins Ronayne and Simpson as Seton Hall freshmen seeded in the top-eight of an event prior to the championship meet as her 400-IM time of 4:33.37 at the Patriot Invitational stands behind just six swimmers in the entire league.
Her 500-free mark would have also been the fastest on the team a year ago and she also contributed SHU's second-fastest 1,650-free time of this season at George Mason, reaching the wall in 17:54.80 to earn a place among the top-16 in the conference.
In relay competition, she led off for Seton Hall's top 800-free relay quartet teaming with Ronayne and our next freshman, Sam Shirtliff, to post a time of 7:47.58 that is fourth-best among BIG EAST squads.
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In a class that featured several standout performers, Shirtliff quickly distinguished herself as another threat in freestyle events for The Hall. The Camp Hill native recorded six top-three times throughout the course of the regular season, adding a victory in the 100-free against Iona - the first meet following an extended winter break - to highlight a campaign in which she finished among the Pirates' team leaders in three separate events.
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