Swimmers and Rowers use preseason to bring success

Following tremendous results in the 1996-97 season, the women's swimming and men's lightweight crew teams now face a common challenge: they must maintain the momentum from last year's successes in order to establish themselves as a "force to be feared" again this year. Both teams have responded to this challenge by hitting the water for preseason training in anticipation of the hard work that awaits them.

The swimmers finished first in the Ivy League for the fifth time in six years, and third in the Easterns Championship, with a flawless 10-0 overall record. Currently, the men and women are training together, and have two practices every day, both run by captains, Janae Deverell, MC '98, and David Antonelli, CC '98. Ivy League regulations forbid coaches to be on deck with their teams before Oct. 1.

The swimmers average about 5,000 meters per practice, and some have also been lifting, cross-training, or doing laps on their own. The divers have also been training with their coach, James Pyrch, and some have held workouts as on their own.

"Our goal is to try to do a lot of distance, and get ourselves in better aerobic shape," Kate Hitchner, PC '98, said. Frank Keefe, head coach for the women since 1980, elaborated, "The thing we're trying to do by Oct. 1 is to get them ready for double [practice] sessions. We also need to get into the weight room, learn to use the system without getting hurt, establish a base, and get resettled in school."

Both captains stressed the difference in intensity between their practices and those during the regular season. "They're not Frank Keefe practices, but they're hard," Antonelli said. In their first "Frank Keefe practice," the swimmers will take on a 2,000-meter swim against the clock.

This year marks a change in the usual Ivy League system of awarding the championship title for the women. In previous years, the team with the best dual-meet record earned the title of Ivy League champions (currently the Elis), an honor distinguished from that bestowed upon the first-place finisher at the championship meet, in which the women placed third last year and second in 1995-96. This year, however, the title will go to the winner of the championship face-off at the end of the season.

The change will affect the team's strategy for the year. Keefe explained, "It's a different way to approach the season. Dual meets are still very important to us...but we're going to train hard all the way through, and not do a lot of resting. Last year we rested three times. It makes it hard to focus when you rest that many times before an important competition."

Success with the new system requires individual performance and team depth, and the preseason has revealed strengths in both these areas. All of the women who hold last year's best times are returning, except for '96-'97 captain, Stephanie Mulazzi, DC '97, and a crop of talented freshmen has arrived. "We are deeper than last year. There won't be many teams that train as hard as we do or are as focused," Keefe observed.

"Everybody has to pull through, whether they are getting first place or 16th, it still makes a difference," Deverell, looking towards the championship meet, said.

Another team that knows all about pulling through is lightweight crew, which is now spending five days a week out on the water. Last year they stroked their way to victory in the Princeton Chase and the San Diego Crew Classic, and the varsity squad earned silver medals at the Sprints and at Collegiate Nationals. Coach Andy Card has designed intense practices in preparation for the three head races in the fall, the Head of the Charles, the Head of the Housatonic (at Yale), and the Princeton Chase, each of which is approximately three miles long.

Their practices include short and long pieces as well as intrasquad races. "I have three goals for the fall: general conditioning, to get the guys in better all-around shape, uniformity of technique, and to race and win all our head races," Card commented. The preseason is also the time for coaches to work on settling line-ups for the varsity, junior varsity, and freshman boats, which generally fluctuate from race to race in the fall.

As with the swimmers, there is a different mood in the preseason and fall practices, since the spring is the main crew season. Captain Steve Purdy, TD '98, explained, "We're trying to make a conscientious effort to go low-key in the fall. There are no early practices... In preseason, we are looking to get all our rowers on one page mentally and technically. Winter will be more rigorous, and we'll perform in the spring. Some of us are lifting now, but not hard-core... we have yet to form program with the new strength and conditioning coach, Steve Plisk."

At the Head of the Charles, Yale's crew will be racing against world-renowned national teams, including those from Canada, Australia, as well as the United States. Coxswain Charles Lozner, SM '99, who coxed the U.S. Heavyweight Four at the World Championships this summer, said of this race, "To win, that is not possible. Our goal is to be the top college boat."

Teammembers agreed on certain factors that contributed to their success last year, and would need to be cultivated to excel this year as well. Lozner emphasized psychological aspects of racing. He said, "What we need to do is prepare ourselves mentally as we did for IRAs. Nothing changed technically, we didn't gain physically in the three weeks [after the Sprints], but we gained a lot of mental toughness." He said it was this toughness which shrank the gap between Yale and the top boat from one race to the next. Clayton Binkley, SM '99, added, "There's going to be more emphasis on going at it, doing race pieces. Part of the point is to get it so everyone just knows how to race. You don't know how to go slow or easy."

For the rowers as well as the swimmers, a lack of speed will certainly be the last thing spectators will see. With the drive and committment demonstrated by both teams, the current training will lead them to a season as spectacular as last year's. The missing piece is, as Lozner said, "miles, lots and lots of miles."

Back to Sports...