Michael Flach anchors men’s swimming team
The swimming and diving team will travel to Charlottesville, Va., this weekend, where it will take on the Virginia Cavaliers and look to rebound from a recent loss to one of the strongest programs in the country.
The swimming sweep at the hands of the Florida Gators last Friday dropped the men’s team to 1-2 on the season, with a conference mark of 1-1 in the SEC. The women’s team was left sitting at 0-3 overall, suffering another conference loss to bring them to 0-2. However, the Gamecocks were not without strong performances in the pool.
“While across the board as a team, it wasn’t our best meet,” coach McGee Moody said, “we did have some people that stepped up and raced hard against some of the fastest guys in the world.”
Juniors Alex Fitton and Matt Navata, a redshirt, won their respective events while fellow juniors Gerard Rodriguez and Michael Flach, another redshirt, came close, each finishing second in their races. The Gamecocks will look to their captains to provide the spark they need against a UVa team that has posted two straight sweeps to open its season.
“On the guy’s side, Michael Flach is always going to be our most visual leader,” Moody said. “On the women’s side, I think our captains have done a good job ... We’ve got leaders on our team, and we’re going to lean on them a lot this week.”
USC diving was led by strong performances from sophomore Patricia Kranz, who posted a career-best 315.70 in the women’s diving-only matchup against Clemson, the first of its kind. Senior Rylan Ridenour also turned in a stellar performance for the men, winning both boards against Florida in his first action of the season.
Ridenour will enter Saturday’s contest against UVa as the reigning SEC diver of the week, an honor he claimed Tuesday for the fifth time in his career.
USC was ranked No. 12 in the first CSCAA poll of the season, the highest position of Moody’s tenure with USC, as well as the best mark since the team finished eighth in the nation at the end of the 2002 season.
With Virginia’s success in the early goings, including a road victory at Pittsburgh, South Carolina is focusing on what it can do, rather than what the opposing athletes are capable of.
“The coaches will focus a lot on what the other teams are doing,” Moody said. “As far as the swimmers, we talk to them more about controlling what they can control.”
Cavaliers’ sophomore Shaun Casey recorded three first-place finishes for the women in UVa’s last meet, followed closely by six other teammates who posted top times in two events each.
Six men for UVa notched top times individually, including a sweep of the breaststroke category led by junior Taylor Grey and freshman Yannick Kaeser. UVa will have its own conference athlete of the week suited up, as junior Rachel Naurath was awarded the women’s swimming title in the ACC.
UVa is unranked in the first men’s poll of the season, but the women hold the No. 11 spot in their category.
The diving portion of the meet will be split up. After a 7:30 p.m. start time Friday, the action will pick up again Saturday at 9:30 a.m. All swimming will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday.
The Gamecocks are determined not to let the strength of its recent competition affect the way they swim. Moody cited preparation on the part of the captains and the coaches as the way the team can make it through this difficult early schedule.
“It’s difficult when you start with that kind of competition back to back to back,” he said. “I think we can make it through this stretch and continue to move on through season.”