Sports Reporter
acastro@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
In his first season as head coach for the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams, Ron Allen has redefined swimming at CMU.
“It’s been a great experience,” Allen said. “The opportunity to coach here was fantastic, and it’s been a wonderful year. Getting the kids to buy into a new philosophy and a new training method was somewhat difficult, but now that we’re done with the majority of the season and we’ve had a lot of success, I think that they can see that there’s a method to the madness.”
One of Allen’s biggest changes was implementing CrossFit and making the training much more technical than it was in previous years. It took the team some getting used to.
“The training style is much more technique-based than it was before,” sophomore sprinter Peter Szekely said. “Also, we had a variety of different sets specifically aimed at each type of swimmer [sprinters, mid distance and distance].”
Not only did Allen transform the way the team trained and practiced but also spent the season emphasizing team support. According to sophomore backstroke swimmer Robyn Meeks, the relationship between the swimmers and the divers has gotten closer throughout the season.
“The divers are amazing at cheering us on,” Meeks said. “They’re probably our loudest yellers, and we try to support them as much. [Divers] Amanda [Jennings] and Savannah [Craft] are the best about keeping the team motivated during weights workouts.”
Two weeks ago, all the hard work throughout the season paid off as the Mavs took second place at the RMAC Championships. Allen was named RMAC Coach of the Year, and junior Brock Martin was named Diver of the Meet and Year.
“Honestly, we weren’t even thinking about second place,” Allen said. “The two teams that had traditionally been winning were the University of The Incarnate Word and Grand Canyon. We really didn’t have our sights set on them. Not to take anything away from our performances, but Incarnate Word did not bring all of their national people up here, so they opened up a door for us, but we were more than happy to walk through it.”
Training for Nationals has already begun, and the Mavs will be sending four divers and two swimmers on to the NCAA D2 Championships to Alabama next month. The divers are Ryan Popp, Craft, Jennings and Martin, and the swimmers are Briana Purkapile and Medhi El Hazzaz.
“For those who are going on to Nationals, the trick is to do a re-taper and basically jump them back to mid-season volumes and intensity, and then we drop them back down,” Allen said. “It’s a little bit of a trick, but it works pretty well.”
For her first trip to Nationals, Purkapile has been training with fellow qualifier El Hazzaz and has hopes to make the top eight and drop another second.
“I just want to get top six on both boards, and I want it to be my fourth year being an all-American,” Purkapile said.
According to Allen, his proudest moment of his first season was seeing the faces of the swimmers at the RMAC Championships.
“Just seeing them come together as a team, that was the most rewarding thing of the whole season,” he explained.
As far as next season goes, Allen wants to take the team’s performance to the next level with the returning members of the team and the key recruits the team has coming in.
“I think we’re going to start making a statement in D2,” Allen said.
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