While the Army swimmers yelled boisterously to cheer on their team, and Marist engaged in a team fight song that parodied the soccer chant ‘Ole,’ the Orange remained silent in its section of the pool, making its already miniscule roster even more apparent.

The Orange roster contains just seventeen swimmers and divers this year, a number dwarfed by both its opponents Friday and Saturday at the Syracuse Invitational, a non-scored exhibition that marked the start of the swim season. SU faced off against both Army and Marist in a series of swimming and diving heats held at both nearby Nottingham High School and Webster Pool on campus.

Such a small roster means that there are events in which SU has no competitors. Of the 26 events over the weekend, the Orange was absent from nine of them. And of the 17 that it did compete in, Syracuse only had representation in seven of the fast heats. SU has only two divers on this year’s team and had to compete against 15 others over the weekend.

‘It’s hard for us to score as many points as other teams when we just don’t have as many athletes who can score those points,’ junior Stephanie Kuczynski said.

In comparison, Marist brought more than 20 athletes this weekend, and Army brought more than 60.

The abbreviated roster is a result of the ongoing phase-out of the swimming and diving program here at Syracuse. The phase-out is in its third year and will be completed after next season.

For head coach Lou Walker, it is difficult to see the swimming and diving program dissipate. Walker is in his 34th season as the SU head coach, and his teams had always competed at the highest level. In his tenure, Syracuse has won 24 individual and team national championships and was represented at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

‘We’re used to having national level kids, and we’ve always taken them and exposed them to that level,’ Walker said.

In the pool, Kuba Kotynia, arguably the team’s best swimmer, was one of the bright spots for the Orange this weekend. He won all four of his events (200 IM, 400 IM, 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard breaststroke), highlighted by the 400 IM, in which he won by more than four seconds.

Eric Vaughn placed 18th in the 200-yard freestyle and was one of three Orange swimmers to crack the top 20 in the 500 freestyle. Chelsea Bryan finished 11th in the 200 freestyle and had a solid time of 25.84 seconds in the 50 freestyle, in which she finished eighth.

‘In terms of attitude and effort and energy, we’ve got kids that you know want to be here,’ Walker said. ‘Eric Vaughn, I was very impressed with this weekend, and Chelsea Bryan did a hell of a job. So there are a lot of kids who, maybe they didn’t win events, but they put in a good effort.’

After several strong individual performances, the team is excited about this season. A trip to the Bucknell Open in early December will allow the athletes to compete against some of the best teams in the country, and the ultimate goal is to qualify for the Big East conference meet in February. Still others, Kotynia said, want to make a push beyond the conference to the NCAA tournament.

Though the goal is made tougher by the small roster, swimmers like Kuczynski see advantages in smaller numbers.

‘It’s much different with a smaller team,’ Kuczynski said. ‘There’s a better bond. It feels really good, and we support each other. I think we put up a pretty fair fight and did a good job for our first meet.’

Mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on October 18, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13