On December 3rd, the Bridgewater State Bears Men’s & Women’s Swimming & Diving team hosted the 7th Annual BSU Swimming & Diving Invitational & Recruit Information Day. For Recruit Day, high school students who are looking for colleges and are interested in joining a swim team came to BSU and took a tour of the university and then watch the meet at the Morarity Pool afterwards. The tour started at the Dana Mohler-Faria Science & Mathematics Center (DMF). The students also got to ask questions about the swim program and the university in general during the tour portion of the experience.
The athletes look forward to this event when it happens every year. Men’s & Women’s Head Coach Michael Caruso (he/him) said, “I think they look at it as an opportunity to try and have a strong competitive swim.” Men’s Captain Chris Anastasiades (he/him) said, “I think we’ve been working very hard hopefully we’ll get enough rest this Thanksgiving and we’re looking forward to the meet and I think we’ll do good as a team.”
BSU invited the Men’s and Women’s teams of Plymouth State, Regis College and Gordon College, as well as the women’s teams of Westfield State, Western New England University, UMass Dartmouth, and Rhode Island College.
Both the BSU men’s & women’s teams won 1st place as a team in final results. The Men’s team scored 1048 points while the women’s scored 758.5 points. BSU won first place in the Men’s 200 Yard Relay, the Men’s 200 Yard Freestyle Relay and the Women’s 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, and the Men’s 1000 Yard Freestyle.
Freshman Cailey Simard broke her own school diving record by posting 273.75 points on six dives on the one-meter board. She previously had a record of 272.05 which she achieved on November 19th against UMass Dartmouth. Simao qualified for the NCAA Division III North/Northeast Regional Diving Championships which will take place on February 24th and 25th. She is the 1st BSU Women’s Diver to qualify for the Regional championships and the 2nd BSU diver to qualify (Andy Fucclilo, 2003).
Anastasiades won 1st place in the Men’s 50 Yard Butterfly, 50 Yard Freestyle and the 100 Yard Individual Medley (IM). Women’s Captain Danielle Vissering (she/her) told The Comment that she wanted to break the school record for the Women’s 50 Yard Backstroke which is 24.90. She had a time of 26.57 and won 2nd place in the event.
The next meet will be on Saturday, January 21st, when they host a tri-meet with Brandeis and Keene State.
