By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Hundreds of athletes and thousands of spectators are in Christiansburg this week for the Colonial Athletic Association’s swimming and diving championships.
For the fourth straight year, the Christiansburg Aquatic Center is playing host to the CAA championships. Seven women’s and five men’s swimming and diving teams have been vying since Wednesday in the competition that continues through today, Saturday, Feb. 22.
Terry Caldwell, the director of the local facility, said her staff was excited about the competition and the quality of athletes the event brings to the New River Valley. “It is good for us. It is good for the community and will bring a very high-quality caliber of (swimming) athlete here,” she said.
The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA‘s Division I whose full members are located in East Coast states from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Most of its members are public universities, and the conference is headquartered in Richmond. League schools include the College of Charleston (Charleston, S.C.), the University of Delaware (Newark, Del.), Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pa.), Elon University (Elon, N.C.), Hofstra (Hempstead, N.Y.), James Madison University, (Harrisonburg), Northeastern (Boston, Mass.), Towson University (Towson, MD.), UNC-Wilmington (Wilmington, N.C.), and the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Va.).
In the women’s competition: James Madison is looking for its third consecutive CAA title. The Dukes outscored second-place William & Mary last season 726-657. JMU returns five champions from last year’s championships.
Bonnie Zhang collected two individual gold medals in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle, and was also a member of the three freestyle relay teams that took gold. The Dukes swept the 200 yard, 400-yard and 800-yard freestyle relays, becoming the first team to achieve such a feat since William & Mary in 2009. Hope Byrum and Faith Anderson captured gold on the 1-meter and 3-meter boards, respectively, while Julianna Jones took the title in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Morgan Whaley also grabbed gold in the 100-yard butterfly.
William & Mary returns just one gold medalist from its second-place team in 2019, as the Tribe contend for their first CAA title since 2017.
Megan Bull leads William & Mary after capturing gold in the 500-yard freestyle for the second straight year in 2019. Her time of 4:44.62 is the best time since 2014, and Bull sits atop this season’s best times in the CAA with a time of 4:51.16. She and freshman teammate Elizabeth Intihar also hold the top times in the 1,650-yard freestyle this season. Bull also tops the CAA list in the 400 individual medley this season.
Jacalyn Schoening and Megan Cowan return to lead the Towson Tigers in the 2020 championship. Schoening took gold in the 100-yard breaststroke and has already posted an NCAA B-cut time of 1:00.82 this season. Cowan took gold in the 200-yard individual medley last season and sits atop the CAA performance list this season with a time of 2:02.41.
Drexel is led by standout senior Alexa Kutch who will be looking for her fourth consecutive title in both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke. Should she get gold in both events this season, she will be the first CAA swimmer to win gold all four years in both events.
Over in the men’s side of the pool, William & Mary is on the hunt for its sixth consecutive men’s swimming CAA title. The Tribe made history in 2018, becoming the first team ever to sweep the relay events and then repeated the feat in 2019.
Colin Wright comes in as the Tribe’s most dominant swimmer. Wright sits third all-time in CAA history with 17 total championships. Only James Madison’s Mark Gabriele with 22, and the Dukes’ Ryan Frost with 18 have ever won more. His sweep of the sprint freestyles in 2019 was just the second time in CAA history that anyone has won all three events.
Drexel placed second in last year’s championships and will look to Jason Arthur to return to the top of the podium for the fourth consecutive year in 2020 in the 200-yard backstroke. He will also look to gold in the 100-yard backstroke after falling to the Tribe’s Colin Demers a year ago. Should Arthur win the 200-yard backstroke, he will be the first swimmer since ODU’s Patrik Balint in 2008 to complete the feat.
UNCW and Towson placed third and fourth last season, respectively. UNCW returns Gianmichel D’Alessandro, who took gold in the 100-yard breaststroke in 2019.
Towson’s Jack Saunderson, one of the most decorated swimmers in CAA history, graduated last season. Saunderson rewrote the CAA record book in the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly and the 200-yard individual medley.
