At Iowa’s swimming and diving media day, it was obvious the team wants to grow from last year.

By Rod Engblom
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After having success in the 2014-15 season, the Iowa women’s swimming and diving team is ready to build on the progress it made last year.

The 2014-15 season included much success, with numerous school records broken. Five different swimmers broke at least one record, while three others broke two or more. Diver Lydia Lenhert had a successful year and the now-graduated Becky Stoughton won a Big Ten title in the 1,650 freestyle.

Junior Emma Sougstad is confident in both her and the team coming into this season, and she has worked hard during the off-season to prepare.

“We got a lot of great incoming freshmen, and I think a lot of talent is here, and I’m really excited see everything go,” she said. “This year, we’ve been working on the ABCs of swimming so what we do outside the pool, how we sleep, how we eat, and lifestyle choices, and I think that’s helped us tremendously.”

Freshman Abbey Schneider, who will swim in her first college meet, is ready for the experience.

“I’m really excited to go,” she said. “This is obviously my first college meet, so it’ll be a lot different from high-school season.”

Schneider, who swims the same strokes that Stoughton use to swim, is ready to step up to the challenge of filling Stoughton’s role.

“She’s really good; she has a lot of school records, and I swim the same events as her, so I feel like there’s kind of a little pressure, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,”  Schneider said. “I just go out there and race and try my best every time.”

Although it may seem intimidating for Schneider to fill the shoes that Stoughton left, she seemingly has the right mindset for the job.

Head coach Marc Long also believes that the team will step up even more this year than it did last season.

“Lydia, Cali, and Emma all performed at a very high level, and all of them are ready to take it even further,” he said. “I’d say Emma is even right now practicing with a sense of urgency at a level she wasn’t at last year this time, and she had a great year last year.”

Along with the improvements he sees in the returning swimmers, Long is confident in the energy the Hawkeyes have as a whole as they enter into a season filled with extremely tough competitors.

He also believes that the loss of Stoughton and Grant Betulius on the men’s team isn’t as much as a negative but as a positive in the long run because both swimmers made great improvements during their time with Iowa.

“Both those athletes had tremendous time drops and performance improvements in this program, and that’s inspiring for our young,” Long said. “I think there are some Beckys and Grants in this younger class; it’s just a matter of getting that performance out of them.”

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