Ohio swimming and diving is coming down to the final month of competition. The Post's Laurie Duffy sat down with coach Greg Werner to talk about this season's surprises and Mid-American Conference scheduling .
The Post: Have there been any surprises in the water this season?
Werner: Oh yeah, every year has surprises. Sometimes they're good surprises, sometimes they're bad surprises. I've been very surprised with how a lot of people who were not in leadership capacity roles last year have very readily and quickly accepted those positions and responsibilities.
The Post: Is there anyone exceeding expectations?
Werner: I'd have to say that Irena Stavreska is really moving along and doing some great things this year - well ahead of where she has been in the past. I would say after last weekend, Genevieve Boucher has done some great things especially in the backstroke, but in the butterfly as well. Adam Thome, I wouldn't say it's much of a surprise, but I think he's having the best year of his life and continues to improve. At some point you'd think he'd slow down on his rate of improvement, but he's been improving by leaps and bounds - no pun intended - each and every year.
The Post: You have seven freshmen this year and swimming in college is a big change for them. How are they doing in the grand scheme of things?
Werner: I think they're doing very well. It is completely different, as you mentioned, than what they've experienced in the past, not just athletically, but socially, academically and then most importantly, putting everything together. Sometimes it takes you a full year to get used to that and to adapt to that. But athletically, I think they're doing great. What I'm asking for them to do is to put in the hard effort, keep their focus on the championships and look for improvements each and every competition. And I'm definitely seeing that. We have some kids who are doing times right at their lifetime bests already, which is tremendous anytime that happens before championships.
The Post: Explain why the men and women have separate meets and why the men don't have as many meets as the women do.
Werner: First and foremost, the championships have always been separate, at least since I've been here and in many years before. But what we experienced the last four years is what we call double dual meets where we get together on Saturdays. Four weekends of the year would be conference meets, and we'd have three schools show up at the site. We'd have double dual meets if all three schools sponsored both men's and women's swimming and diving. Unfortunately, we lost Toledo this last spring and Northern Illinois the year before, so because of that, we don't have as many men's programs. But we didn't start with as many men's programs anyway. And with Marshall adding women's swimming and diving, that's just one more on the women's side. Because of that, there's nine women's programs and five men's programs. There aren't going to be as many competitions on the men's side. We could look to schedule some men's competitions outside of the conference, but unfortunately with me being the head coach of men's and women's swimming and diving - and the only head coach of both in the conference - it's very hard for me to schedule non-conference competition on a conference weekend... This is one of the reasons we have the schedule we have this season. I'm the only combined coach, and this is the only combined program in the conference. Most of the coaches voted to separate. All of the administrators voted to separate except here at Ohio, and because of that, we're locked into the schedule we have for two years - this year being the first.
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Laurie Duffy
