Wildcat swimmers open season this weekend
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This is the combined men's and women's swimming and diving teams at Northern Michigan University posing near the Lake Superior shore in Marquette with the Lower Harbor ore dock in the background. (Photo courtesy NMU)
That happens for the men's and women's swimming and diving teams at Northern Michigan University late Friday afternoon -- at 5 p.m. EDT to be exact -- in St. Cloud, Minnesota, for two days of meets at St. Cloud State. Saturday's action begins at 11 a.m. EDT.
"I'm excited for St. Cloud this weekend," Wildcats head coach Heidi Voigt said in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing the action. "Their men are always so good, and they're in our conference. The women are in the Northern Sun Conference, but they're always strong, too. We battle with them pretty head to head, so I'm excited to see what this weekend looks like."
Apparently because of the lack of opportunities in their main conference, the Northern Sun, the St. Cloud men's program was accepted as a member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference several years ago, while the women remained in their Minnesota-based league.
Both days of action this weekend are available to stream through MidcoSports Plus, or fans can visit the Northern athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and look under either men's or women's swimming and diving schedules to find links to live video and a preview.
Both Wildcats teams did more than figuratively get their feet wet with the Green and Gold intrasquad meet on Sept. 19 at NMU's PEIF pool.
It gave the coach the ability to come up with a preview of where she thinks her teams will at least start the season.
"I would say on the men’s side, we definitely have a young team," Voigt said. "We have nine returners and 14 new faces. So there's a lot of a learning curve, but we do have great captain leadership.
"I'm also pretty excited to see how our men divers do; we have three guys that this is their final year with us and are all looking really good, so I'm pretty excited about Diego Carillo, Ryan Foucault and Benaiah Schnurstein.
"And then on the swimming side, there is good leadership by Alessandro Rosatelli and Gabriel Fulconi, and they're looking pretty great. And of course we have our GLIAC Freshman and GLIAC Swimmer of the Year Matteo Ballardin back, and he's been looking good in the water, too.
"So we're excited to see where they go and how they lead this young group.
"On the women's side, we have again all great returning divers. Kalina Ceglinski is back, and Lilian Marx is healthy and ready to go. Josie Bossen as well, and we have Riley Hummel and Grace Daly, and they're looking really good. So I'm excited to see what they do this weekend as well.
"We have good leadership also on the women's (swimming) side in terms of Sophia Moore as a returning captain and Abigail Keen. They're leading our team, but good freshman faces coming in too.
"I'm excited to see what happens; with so many new faces, you don't really know what to expect all the time, like to see who comes through in battle situations, so that'll be fun."
After their Minnesota trip, the Wildcats return home for the first of two home weekends this season, facing Saginaw Valley State and Lake Superior State at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, then making it three opponents -- SVSU, LSSU and Grand Valley State -- at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24.
Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the meet. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee's email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.