PROVO, Utah – The BYU men and women’s swim and dive teams are ready to get back in action as the 2014-15 season is just around the corner.
“I’m excited to get started,” head coach John Brooks said. “Our men’s team won the conference last year so we want to repeat. Our women’s team has taken second and third in the conference the past two seasons so we’re hungry to finally break through and win the conference.”
The Cougars will dive into their fourth season as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and Brooks feels like it could be their best season yet.
“I don’t think there is a swimmer on our team who doesn’t want to be here. We have a great group of girls and guys that are passionate about swimming,” Brooks said. “We’re all excited to show what we can do. We have a lot of talented freshmen coming in with a lot of potential and it will be exciting to see how they mix with what we already have.”
Seniors Hayden Palmer and Michael King, along with Junior Jake Taylor, will captain the men’s swim team who is looking to repeat as MPSF champions. Last season, Taylor was named to the All-MPSF first team five times, Rainer Ng was named four times and Nicholas Suder was named first team in all three diving events. Fifteen men earned All-MPSF first team last season with 17 earning second team honors.
Andrea Grant Richards and Ciera Marsh Keller will captain a women’s team who finished third in conference last season. Last year the women’s team had five first-team All-MPSF performers and 14 second team performers.
Matt Hopper and Mackenzie Rands will captain the men's and women’s dive teams.
This team has simple goals for this season.
“Our job is to represent BYU the best way we can,” Brooks said. “So being highly ranked, winning conference and getting people to the NCAA's so we can be ranked is the ultimate goal.”
The first chance to catch the Cougars in action is Friday, Sept. 19, at 5 p.m. MDT at the Richards Building Pool for the Alumni meet. All alumni are invited to participate and can RSVP on the BYU swimming and diving alumni page.
BYU heads out to Grand Junction, Colorado, for the Mesa State Invite Oct. 3-4 to get the season underway.
To see where the Cougars will be swimming this season and who they will compete against, visit the men's and women's schedule pages.