Hoosiers begin season with high expectations

The IU swimming and diving team experienced mixed results last season. The men garnered a fourth place conference finish and Top-20 NCAA ranking, while the women won their first Big Ten conference title since 2003. IU coach Ray Looze thinks the women’s impressive finish needs to become commonplace on both teams.\n“We talk about winning championships here everyday,” he said. “It’s ingrained in our culture.” \nThe Hoosiers are hoping to achieve better results this season on the men’s side and defend their conference title on the women’s. They begin their quest Friday when they open up the 2007-08 campaign against the Missouri Tigers.\nThe Hoosiers defeated Mizzou last season on Senior Day at the Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center. However, this season the tables are turned, as IU travels to Columbia to swim against the solid Big 12 school.\n“It’s going to be a really hard trip,” Looze said.\nThe Hoosiers face a strong Missouri team. The Tigers broke 26 different school records last season. \n“They’re a pretty good team,” said senior Alex Brunfeldt. “I know they’ve gotten better since last year. Anything can happen.” \nThere is plenty of talent to go around for the Hoosiers as well. Senior Ben Hesen leads the way for IU in the 100-meter backstroke. He placed first in the event during the Big Ten Championships and placed second at the NCAA Championships. He also participated with the U.S. National Team over the summer in Chiba, Japan.\nSeniors Pat Penoyar and Todd Patrick also hope to have a positive effect. Penoyar looks to be a serious threat to take the individual Big Ten titles in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke. He finished second in the conference in both events last season. Meanwhile, Patrick also represented the U.S. alongside Hesen over the summer and took home a silver medal in the 200-meter individual medley. \nOn the women’s team, the defending Big Ten champs were hit hard by graduation last season. With only four seniors on the roster, there is less experience on the team, but the Hoosiers are hoping a couple of the younger athletes can help pick up the slack. Sophomores Presley Bard and Ashley Jones both competed for the U.S. over the summer with Hesen and Patrick in Japan. Jones set an IU record en route to a seventh place finish in the 200-meter individual medley. \nBut despite having such an inexperienced squad, there is still plenty of confidence coming into the Missouri meet.\n“We won all but one event last year against them,” sophomore Brittany Barwegen said. “We expect to win.” \nHowever, Looze knows that it will take a collective team effort to achieve their goals this season. He felt the Hoosiers weren’t quite deep enough to do the job last year. Now, things are different.\n“We are very deep and balanced,” Looze said. “We want to get as much out of every individual as we can.”\nA stacked freshman recruiting class adds to that depth. The men’s and women’s classes ranked 7th and 20th in the nation, respectively, according to collegeswimming.com. \n“This class has been looking better than any we’ve had,” Brunfeldt said. \nBerwegen is confident that the freshmen will swim well in their first NCAA meet. \n“It should be fairly easy for the freshmen to come in and do well,” she said.\nAs another season of IU swimming is set to kick off, Looze said he has extremely high expectations for this year’s squad. \n“No one is expecting us to win, and I like it like that,” he said. “This year I’m looking forward to hopefully winning it again.”