Sitting in his office in October, Sean Schimmel outlined his goals for his third year at the helm of the Terrapin swimming and diving program.
“It’s always about doing things that we’ve never done before, being better than we’ve ever been before,” he said then. “Our focus is always going to be ACCs and going to NCAAs.”
Months later, Schimmel’s refrain remains unchanged — an inescapable reminder that the journey for self-improvement has no expiration date.
The Terrapin men’s swimming team’s opportunity to compete on one of the sport’s biggest stages — the 1996 Olympic pool at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta — finally arrives today, when the Terps will begin their first full slate of competition in the ACC Championships.
“Yeah, it’s ratcheted up a little bit,” Schimmel said of the championship meet. “But I think it’s more about excitement. It’s more about competition and that competitive edge, and the guys are just chomping at the bit right now, just waiting to get in there and see what they can do.”
The men’s team (2-8) ended its dual meet slate on a high note in a 136-70 romp over Georgetown, a positive finish to a season that often contrasted starkly to the results the Terp women enjoyed.
Still, swimming is not a sport defined by wins and losses. The clock dictates true hierarchy, and the Terp men have their share of talented competitors.
Junior Andrew Relihan is poised to represent the Terps in a team-high five individual events this week. He is seeded no lower than No. 18 in any event and has the No. 3 seed in the 200 IM (1:49.19) and No. 6 seed in the 200 back (1:46.54).
“He has progressed a lot from freshman year coming into this year,” Schimmel said of the co-captain. “Andrew, I think, has a good mindset right now, and he has the opportunity to do things really well this championship.
“He’s put the work in this year, he’s done the training, and now he really has to execute in his races.”
The squad’s other captain, senior Mitch Challacombe, the No. 9 seed in the 50 free (20.28) and 100 free (44.81), leads a quartet of seniors back to the site where they swam as freshmen and finished in eighth place at the conference’s championship meet.
For six straight years, that’s where the Terp men’s team has finished. And while a seventh-place finish would signal progress, Schimmel was quick to point out the big picture is never far out of mind.
“We got to take that one step at a time. You’re certainly not going to go and leapfrog all seven teams that are in front of you,” he said. “Going through a seven-session championship meet that’s out here at the ACCs, it takes a lot of depth; it takes everybody firing on at the same time in order to really start making headway into the middle of the pack and then the top of the pack.
“That’s the goal, and that’s where we’re going over the course of the next few years, and we’re going to take it one event at a time, one season at a time and one championship at a time.”
castello@umdbk.com
