POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (October 15, 2015) – The 2015-16 campaign for the Vassar women's swimming team is right around the corner, and excitement is as high as ever for this season's squad. The team includes 15 returners from last year's group, while nine freshmen will make their collegiate debuts this month. Back to lead the Brewers in her 22nd season is head coach Lisl Prater-Lee, who believes this year's group may be the deepest in several years.
"It's fun, each year is something new," said Prater-Lee. "We have a whole new group of people in front of us. We know from the returners what they've been able to provide us before, but we are looking for new things from them as well. They're our leaders, they know how a season goes here at Vassar, and they know how to combine that with the academic work and everything else outside the pool as well…We do have our sights on bigger and better things. We'd like to surprise our competition…with every meet we can show a little bit more. "
Returning from a storybook season in 2014-15 is junior All-American Julia Cunningham (Yardley, PA/Peddie School). Cunningham capped off last year's campaign for Vassar at the NCAA Championships, finishing seventh in the nation in the 200 butterfly, setting a new school record of 2:03.03 in the process. Cunningham has a hand in seven school records heading into her third collegiate season, and will again be a force in the pool for the Brewers this year.
"It's super exciting," said Cunningham. "This is not only one of the biggest groups we've ever had, but one of the fastest. We already have people going times that they had midseason last year in practice, which is great."
Senior Lily Frye (Fairport, NY/Harley School) returns as one of the team's top sprinters, after posting the fastest 100 yard freestyle time (56.50) and second fastest 50 yard free (25.75) at the UNYSCSA Championships last winter. Senior Milee Nelson (Champaign, IL/University Laboratory) will swim the longer freestyle events, as she finished as the second fastest Brewer in the 200, 500 and 1000 free last season. Nelson also swam the 50 and 100 yard backstroke events a season ago.
Senior Marie Schmidt (Homer, AK/Homer) will also be a solid contributor for the Brewers, as she swam freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke for Vassar last year. Fellow senior and team captain Anna Kuo (Floral Park, NY/Townsend Harris) posted VC's fastest time (1:11.36) in the 100 breaststroke last year, and was the second quickest Brewer in the 200 breast (2:38.43).
Kuo, Nelson and Cunningham, in addition to recent alumnus Elizabeth Balter ('15) teamed up to set a new program record in the 200 medley (1:51.71) last season. Cunningham, Nelson, Schmidt and alumnus Olivia Harries ('15) also set a new program mark in the 800 free relay (7:58.63).
Vassar will have a new look in the diving well, as the team welcomes diving coach Jack Ferriter to the program for his first season. Despite graduating NCAA Regional Qualifier Kelly Wilkinson ('15), the team still returns experience in senior Maya Pruitt (New York, NY/LaGuardia Music Art) and sophomore Nora Kyrkjebo (Singapore/United World College of Southeast Asia).
"Having Jack has been awesome," said Pruitt. "We definitely needed the consistency so it's just great to know he's going to be here and he's working super hard. Something he's been focusing on is that we're just banging out our list everyday, so we're really working on all our dives all at once. So developing that consistency, making sure we're doing all the dives all the time is going to make sure that nothing falls behind."
SCHEDULE
The Brewers will be in the waters of Kresge Pool for four home contests this season, while swimming a combined nine meets away from Poughkeepsie on the year.
VC will swim six meets in the fall before the team's first semester finale at the Liberty League Championships December 4-5 held in Troy, NY (swim) and Schenectady, NY (dive). The Brewers will have individual conference dual meets against Bard College, Skidmore College and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute leading up to the event.
The Brewers also face SUNY-New Paltz and New York University in the months of October and November, in addition to competing against multiple sides at the Union College Relays October 24.
Vassar will start the new year off with a tri-meet against Mount Holyoke College and Trinity (CT) College on January 14, before diving into another tri-meet two days later on the road against Hamilton College and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
The women will head to Wellesley, MA for the annual Seven Sisters Championships in January, before hosting the team's final meet of the season at the Vassar Sprint Invitational. VC will wrap up the regular season at the UNYSCSA Championships February 16-19 held in Ithaca, NY.
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