Feb. 16, 2009

Stony Brook, N.Y. - Stony Brook University's swimming & diving teams will be traveling to Boston, Massachusetts this Thursday to compete at the America East Swimming & Diving Championships, held at Boston University. Head coach Dave Alexander has his hopes high as the Seawolves look to improve upon last year's performance, which saw Stony Brook come home with three individual championships.

"Out student-athletes have trained very hard this year," said Alexander. "Assistant coach Vladimir Sreckovic and our strength and conditioning coach, Sarah Kearney, have pushed them and they are ready to compete."

On the women's side, Darcy Heuser (Centerville, Ohio) will be looking for a strong finish to her freshman campaign. She broke two school records this season and posted some strong times which should give her a good seeding in the Championship. Also expected to have a good seed in her events is sophomore Anastasia Kiryushkina (Moscow, Russia) who has been impressive in the breaststrokes this year.

"Seniors Lucy Liu (Bronx, N.Y.) and Liav Cohen (Reut Modi'in, Israel) will provide the women's team with experience and a calming presence," said Alexander, "but I think it will come down to how well our freshmen do. If they can fill in the 9-16 slots in a few races and sneak into the top-eight here and there I think we'll do real well. We've surprised people all season long; I don't see why it would stop now."

Sophomore Lukasz Ochmanski (Lodz, Poland), the defending 500 and 1,650-yard freestyle champion on the men's side, and freshman Ian Francis (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) have both had impressive seasons and should be near the top of their respective races.

"Omer Ozcan (Brooklyn, N.Y.) will be making his fourth appearance at the Championships and considering this will be the last race of his career, I'm confident he'll be a force," said Alexander. "Our distance guys, freshman Zackery Good (Columbus, Ind.) and sophomore Nathan Fleshman (Monroe, Mich.), have both had great training sessions and should hold their own as well."

Senior Julian Acevedo (Long Island City, N.Y.) will be diving in his last America East meet and will be going toe-to-toe with the defending one-meter dive champion Andre Watson of Boston University. Acevedo is a two-time champion in the one-meter, taking first in 2006 and 2007.

"We haven't had a year like this, as far as training goes, in a long time," said Alexander. "There isn't a single athlete going who can't score for us, but at the end of the day I just want to see our kids finish the race, look up at their time and smile, knowing they gave it their best effort."