ATHENS, Ohio — Ohio swim and dive is excited for the 2023-24 season to start.
Head coach Mason Norman and his staff have spent the offseason reflecting on how to elevate the Bobcats for the 2023-24 season. They felt that there was room to improve upon last season's success. Ohio went undefeated in Mid-American Conference duals last season and 7-2 overall. The only losses it faced were to Michigan and Virginia Tech.
"As a coach, really being able to examine the information that you're given over the course of the season, understanding how people are resting when it comes down to the amount of training, just so that we're putting ourselves in a position to score the most points possible," Norman said. "We scored the most we have in the last probably eight years, last year, but we left too much on the table"
This season, Norman doesn't want there to be any questions about the Bobcats.
Ohio's roster features several familiar faces, including MAC Champion senior Ami Hornyak and graduate student Mckenzie Grau, who is a member of all of Ohio's relays. Overall, Ohio has 25 returners — 11 of which are seniors.
The Bobcats also have 11 freshmen on their roster. The freshmen have helped round out the Bobcats' scoring in areas they didn't have as much depth last season.
"We're a little bit closer to those schools (Miami, Buffalo) at the moment," Norman said. "We have some really good freshmen divers that's gonna help us score some points. Like I said, we're better in other areas than last year. We're a little bit deeper across the board. I think that's a big one is scoring diving points and moving up in the conference."
Ohio's nonconference schedule will help it warm up for the Mid-American Conference portion of its schedule. Ohio will start its season with a dual meet against Illinois State at home on Oct. 13. Then it will hit the road for a meet against University of Maryland - Baltimore County.
Ohio's MAC schedule will start in late October with meets against Bowling Green and Akron. The Bobcats will travel to take on the Falcons and then return home for their meet against the Zips.
"I would say the biggest meets on our schedule are our MAC meets, and probably the biggest meet for us, is Nov. 4 versus Akron," Norman said. "They're defending champs, they've won eight out of the last nine years."
The Bobcats take a break from duals to swim at the Ohio State Invitational on Nov. 16. They finished eighth as a team at the invitational in 2022. From there, they will go to Greensboro, North Carolina, for the Toyota U.S. Open.
After a quick break, Ohio is set to open 2024 with a meet against Marshall on Jan. 5 in the Aquatic Center. Last season, the Bobcats defeated the Thundering Herd 197-97 on the road.
Unique to this season's schedule is the back-to-back weekends Ohio will spend in Buffalo. The diving team will compete in the Buffalo Diving Invite on Jan. 12 and the whole team will travel there the following weekend.
"They have a separate diving Invitational that is important for them just in terms of the the setup of a dual meet to an invitational is completely different. Just how you prepare for each dive, the amount of divers that are in the meet, their diving competition lasts for about 30 minutes in total, each person diving six times. You go to an invitational that's a three hour session. You have 10 to 20 minutes between each dive sometimes, depending on how many people are entering, so that's going to prepare them for the conference."
Ohio's dual schedule wraps up with senior day against Ball State, who it did not swim against during the regular season last year. But, before the regular season is over, the Bobcats will take one last trip to Columbus for the Ohio State Winter Invite.
The MAC Championships will take place from Feb. 28 to March 2 in Athens.
"It's the first time we've hosted since 2018, so to be able to host that group of seniors at this pool for their last collegiate competition for most of them, it's something that's pretty special," Norman said.
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