Swimming & Diving Opens Competitive Season this Weekend
10/25/2002 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
The Alabama Swimming and Diving teams open up the 2002-03 competitive season this weekend by heading in two different directions.
Head coach Don Wagner and diving coach Pat Greenwell will be taking a squad of nine women to compete at the elite SMU Swimming & Diving Classic in Dallas, Texas while associate head coach Arthur Albiero will be taking the remainder of the women's squad and the men's team to face Louisiana-Monroe in Monroe.
"On the women's side, Arthur's crew has a tough road with six swimmers and three divers," Wagner said. "They're definitely going to have to swim tough and overcome the fact that there are just a handful of them to swim a full slate of events."
Wagner's crew will have challenges of their own. The SMU Classic, which runs Friday and Saturday, is a world-class event and a tough way to start the season. The Classic features only the fast, spectacular races -- no long distances. The competition allows a nine-woman squad (eight swimmers and one diver per team) from each of the six teams for the two evening sessions. There are no preliminary heats, only consolation and championship finals.
With that in mind, Wagner is going to find out immediately where his highly touted freshman group stacks up on a national basis. The 10 athletes Alabama is taking is made up of four upperclassmen, including All-Americans Lane Bassham, Anne Poleska and Catalina Casaru and five rookies.
"I think staring at this meet will help us," Wagner said. "It tells the athletes where they are right away. I think it really makes a difference to stand up against the best. This is a meet where you stand up and make a statement or let someone else dictate your spot in the pecking order."
Bassham and Poleska have been instrumental in the Tide's success in the past, carrying the Tide to two consecutive top-20 finishes.
"Anne and Lane are great athletes and they are largely responsible for our forward momentum, but now they don't have to carry us all by themselves, we've surrounded them with very good athletes."
The men's team and the rest of the women's squad will finally get a chance to race someone other than each other on Friday when they make the trek to Monroe. And while the women will have to swim tough with only eight athletes, the men will bring the full force of a team that finished 20th last year at the NCAA Championships.
All-American sophomores Stefan Gherghel and Stewart Smith will lead the charge for the Tide. Gherghel is the defending NCAA 200 butterfly champion while Smith was the Southeastern Conference Freshman Diver of the Year last season.
The men's team is made up of 27 athletes, including 11 newcomers. The women that will face Louisiana-Monroe are mostly veterans with the exception of rookies Sonya Adams and Crystal Rasmussen who will make their Crimson Tide debut.
