Swimming and Diving Travels to the America East Championships
2/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
ORONO, Maine -- The University of Maine men's and women's swimming and diving teams will compete this weekend at the America East Championships which will be held at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center in Boyds, Md., hosted by UMBC.
The Championships get under way with the men's one-meter diving prelims which are slated to begin at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17. The Championship will pick back up on Friday at 10 a.m. and continue through the weekend until the final races are swam Sunday evening.
The Black Bear women will look to improve on their 209 point, seventh point finish from a year ago. Man will rely on a mixture of newcomers as well as veterans as it looks towards a solid showing at this year's championships. Senior captain Caitlin Shelley (Charlottesville, Va.) has provided great leadership all season for Maine accompanied by some very strong showings in the pool. Shelley set the school-record earlier this season in the 50 yard breaststroke with a time of 31.16. Freshman Kara Capossela (Greenwich, Conn.) will look to score high for Maine on the diving boards. Capossela ranks third among America East women on both the one-and-three-meter boards. At one point this season, Capossela put together a string of 14 straight combined wins at both heights.
The men's team will be looking towards some of the same mixture of talent to lead them as they will also rely on both underclassmen and senior leadership. The Black Bears will look to improve on their 258 point fifth place performance from a year ago. Jeremy Bender (St. Paul, Minn.) has been strong all year for Maine in both the distance and IMs. Bender will be looking for yet another solid showing at the Championships as he set a new school-record in the 400 IM at last year's event when he swam the race in 4:07.56. Yuri Chornobil (Rochester, N.Y.) will look to carry Maine in the distance races as he has had many strong finishes in all distance races this season. Another young gun will lead Maine on the diving boards as Tim Smith (Bangor, Maine) will look to continue his stellar freshman campaign. Smith ranks second on the one-meter board and third on the three-meter board.
Please keep checking back to GoBlackBears.com for all your tournament results. For more information on the championship meet, visit Championship Central at AmericaEast.com.
-U-M-
