While the Ohio State synchronized swimming team continues to train for its sixth consecutive national title defense, other teams simply hope they aren’t embarrassed on the way.
“We’re just begging them not to stomp on us too much,” said Dee Dent, coach of the Walsh College squad. The NAIA school will host OSU and Canisius College this weekend.
The Buckeyes, coming off a victory two weeks ago in their home opener against Keuka College and Michigan, will travel to the Northwest Community Center in Canton for the meet.
With more time allowed for preparation at this point in the season, this weekend’s meet will be the first to include an eight-member team swimming event.
Noticing the class drop in competition from the Jan. 19 OSU tri-meet, OSU interim head coach Holly Vargo-Brown will be sending her “B” team to compete this weekend.
“With such a deep program, we’re able to divide it in half,” Vargo-Brown said. “Taking the ‘B’ squad to this meet will help them gain experience.”
Though they may not be the best swimmers on a very deep OSU team, the second string contains some of the best collegiate swimmers in the nation.
At the 2004 Collegiate Nationals, the “B” squad took fourth in the final standings. Canisius College took fifth.
Despite the reformed strategy, Vargo-Brown is still on edge about the debut of OSU’s team event routine.
“So much preparation goes into synchronizing the team event,” Vargo-Brown said. “The patterns and formations aren’t yet second nature for our swimmers.”
Dent, whose Walsh squad finished 13th last season in the collegiate national meet, recognizes that OSU has the better swimmers.
“When you face a team like OSU, the defending national champions, they push you to do better,” said Dent, who founded the program in 1993. “Our girls are realists, and we know Ohio State is going to do great, so we just don’t want to be embarrassed.”
Vargo-Brown is optimistic about OSU’s chances.
“We’re sending two very strong trio teams, and it will be interesting to see which one comes out on top,” Vargo-Brown said.
Senior Stacey Coffman, junior Erin Schmidt and freshman Michelle Benzie will make up one trio. Juniors Jessica Beck, Megan Mikulecky and Stephanie Raftery will make up the other trio team.
Vargo-Brown will also send two duet groups. Junior Leslie Edgerton will compete in the solo event.
Walsh hopes their new routine featuring tornado movements will be the answer against OSU.
They will boast one trio group, two duets and a team act.
This will be the first meet for Stacy Leiker as coach of the Canisius program. Leiker was an All-American synchronized swimmer with the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
Next weekend, the OSU “A” team will return to action at home for the OSU College Association Meet.
