Mountain Hawk women have 'stepped up' heading into 2018-19 season

Saturday, October 6

Boston, Mass.

1:30 p.m.

Lehigh University

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Mountain Hawk women have 'stepped up' heading into 2018-19 season

10/4/2018 3:00:00 PM | Women's Swimming and Diving

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — It's another promising season upcoming for the Lehigh women's swimming and diving team, especially as head coach Rob Herb's program travels to Boston University on Saturday for the first meet of the year, a tri-meet against BU and Northeastern.

The season is a big one for the program and for Lehigh University, officially celebrating 100 years of swimming at Lehigh.

The Mountain Hawk women enter the 2018-19 season after a very strong season last year, finishing 6-2 overall, 4-1 in the Patriot League and placed third at the Patriot League Championships back in February.

Lehigh will be without key seniors that graduated in 2017, including Lehigh's Graduating Female Athlete of the Year Meghan Thompson, Julianne Koch, Rachel Rider, Sydney Bornstein and three other key leaders of the senior class.

This year's squad features a very new, but promising freshman class added to an already built up upper class including seniors Courtney Ferreira, Rayna Smilowitz, Allison Morel, Melissa Segovia, and Kate Bergin.

"I think our women are just a little bit ahead of where our men were as far as recruiting and depth," said Herb. "We have a really deep women's program and that's been years of several great girls deciding to come to Lehigh."

According to Herb, Lehigh's sophomore class is one of the most talented in the program this year and their junior class features a Patriot League Champion in Payton Miles, who took home her second league title, her first in the 100 freestyle with a winning time of 50.04, which also set a new school record.

The sophomore class features Patriot League champion Megan Fennell, who became the first female champion diver in Lehigh history when she won the 1-meter dive. For her winning effort, she was named Patriot League Female Diver of the Meet, the first to earn that honor in program history.

"Our first-years coming in, there could also be a Patriot League champion, so it's definitely a team that has continued to develop and stick to values we want to see in our student athletes so it's a good balance," Herb said.

The seniors from last year are going to be missed, but there are still strong contributors that will be important pieces on continuing the success of the team as a whole.

"When we look at names, we start looking at the perennial strongholds and you have Kate Bergin, who's a Patriot League finalist, you have Courtney Ferreira, Ann Foley and Anna Francisco made a big splash last year for the backstrokes," said Herb.

"We needed some distance help because we lost our top distance swimmer, so Samantha Gallego totally stepped up in that role. So we're really stacked from our senior class all the way through and adding in the freshman class that are here now."

The freshman class is highlighted by Annie Norris, who is strong at butterfly and at the individual medley Liz Olszewski, who covers breaststroke and the IM, as well as Amy Qin at breaststroke. Carly Rutledge is also added to the bunch as a long distance and 200 freestylist. The coaching staff is expecting a lot from those women, but they are still developing, like everyone else.

"On our women's side, we are lacking some of the sprint freestyle we've had in the past," Herb said. "But we're also seeing some of the girls stepping up. We had a super great class graduate last year.

"But we are deep, deep. We aren't talking about one person winning all the time. We are talking about three girls that can go '2, 3, 4,' '1, 2, 3,' and '6, 7, 8,' in every race at the Patriot League Championships and those are big points."

The Mountain Hawks' divers are led by Fennell and joined by Rayna Smilowitz.

Lehigh's schedule is a little bit of the same as the men's schedule, but its challenges lie more in the second half of the season than the first, especially heading into Patriot League season.

The Mountain Hawks begin their journey to the Patriot League Championships in February with the dual meet vs. BU and Northeastern Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

"Our match against BU will tell a lot about our team and what we have," said Herb. "If we're healthy, it'll come down to the last relay, but I think they are showing a lot of strength this early in the season, a lot of strength."

The team will return to Jacobs Pool on Friday, Oct. 19 at 5 p.m. against West Chester and Oct. 20 at 1 p.m. against Rider. According to Herb, West Chester is one of the strongest Division II teams in the country.

The Mountain Hawks meet up with Loyola on Saturday, Oct. 27 before heading to Princeton for the Big Al Invitational on Nov. 9-10 and get ready for the Lafayette meet in Easton on Nov. 16.

U.S. Winter Nationals are set for Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, followed by the meet with LaSalle on Wednesday, Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. at Emmaus High School. Lehigh's Senior Night is Friday, Jan. 11 at 3 p.m. against Army West Point, closing the season with Bucknell on Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. The Patriot League Championships will be Feb. 20-23 in Lewisburg.

Lehigh's third-place finish at the Patriot League Championship meet is largely thanks to the senior class who were so important to the team's overall success. This year, the Mountain Hawks are building up again thanks to that 'stepping-up' attitude that could put them right back in the conversation as a top-3 program in the spring.

"Because we lost such strong freestylers, it kind of hurts our freestyle relays a little bit," said Herb. "We have to wait to see if we can develop some of that back. We are close, so I think we will be good. We have enough of a cushion in that third place that we could stay there, but I don't know what others have compared to last year, so we should be fighting for that third spot again."

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