Huskies sink Fordham and Bucknell in first meet

In their first meet of the year, the UConn men's swimming and diving team defeated Fordham and Bucknell in dual competition.

This Saturday, the Huskies hosted the Fordham Rams and the Bucknell Bison in a round robin series of dual competitions. Over the course of the afternoon, all three teams competed with each other one-on-one, and the Huskies came out victorious in both of their meets. In their first competition, UConn handedly defeated Fordham with a score of 191-105. Advancing to their second competition, UConn continued their success with a 175-125 score over Bucknell.

“I thought we had a pretty solid start to our season Saturday,” said senior Sean Cooke. “The first meet is always tough because it's hard mentally transitioning from training to racing but we stepped up and had some quality swims.”

The Huskies saw strong performances from many members of the team in every event in which they competed. Senior Kyungsoo Yoon had the most successful day of anyone on the team, winning in four of his events including a 29.81 second finish in the 50-yard freestyle and a 47.04 second finish in the 1000-yard freestyle. Yoon was also an integral part of the two winning medley relay wins.

In addition, junior Keith Piper and sophomore Lachezar Shumkov had impressive performances in the two dual meets. Piper won the 100-yard backstroke and competed on the winning medley and freestyle relay teams. Shumkov finished first in the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke, and also participated in the winning 200-yard medley relay. Cook described the freshman class’s performance in the meets as “strong” this weekend, which rounded off what turned out to be a successful weekend for the whole team.

“Bucknell and Fordham have some strong athletes that gave us tight races, which made for an exciting start to the year,” said Cook. “Our freshman class is very strong and is going to be a great addition to our solid core lineup of upperclassmen.”
Last week, 25-year veteran coach Bob Goldberg made the statement that this year’s squad could be one of the best swimming and diving teams ever to compete at UConn. So far, they are certainly on track to make a big splash this season.

“After our strong performance yesterday we recognize that we have the potential to do big things this year,” said Cook. “If we stay focused and driven we should be very successful this season.”
In the Bucknell-Fordham dual meet that also took place over the weekend, the Bison came out victorious, defeating the Rams respectably with a score of 179-120. Bucknell’s runner-up competitors against UConn were more than enough to give them the edge over Fordham. In the end, this gave the Huskies a 2-0 record on the weekend while the Bison walked away 1-1 and the Rams 0-2.

The Huskies had a solid performance to kick off the season and hope to continue their success in a dual meet with Army to be hosted in West Point, N.Y. this Friday, starting at 6 p.m. The meet with Army will kick off the team’s extensive road schedule for the season. The Huskies will not compete again at home until late January when they host Seton Hall in UConn’s Wolff-Zackin Natatorium.