In last year’s season-opening tri-meet against Siena and Niagara, the Binghamton men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams won every single event in the meet. With a new head coach and roster, the teams are aiming to repeat their performance on Saturday, Oct. 19 in this year’s season opener.

Last season, the men’s team went 4-1 and placed second in the America East (AE) Swimming and Diving Championship. But since then, the team has lost some key swimmers to graduation and transferring. Among them were Alex Brion, who holds the pool record for the 50 free (20.90) and graduated last year, and junior Patrick Wilson, who is a part of two pool record relays and transferred to Fordham this year.

On the women’s side, the team went 7-1 but placed fifth of seven in the AE Championship, a surprising result considering their regular season success. Both the men’s and women’s teams, however, did not drop a single meet at home and are looking to continue that trend in the 2019-20 season.

Following Brad Smith’s resignation to become the new head swimming and diving coach at Youngstown State, Jerry Cummiskey was tabbed to take over the program this season. He led his first Green vs. White meet on Oct. 5, a simulation meet where the teams are split up and compete against each other. Cummiskey said he is pleased with the way the team performed.

“We had some good swims,” Cummiskey said. “We learned about where we’re strong and where we have some weaknesses. I think overall we had a pretty good day to get started. Once we’re all on the same team, we’ll get a little deeper.”

There are several impactful returners, such as junior Kaitlyn Smolar, who holds three pool records, sophomore Amanda McGraw, who won the one-meter dive at the AE Championship and senior Ross Bernstein, who crushed David Holmes’ 200 fly pool record last season.

Additionally, the teams have some freshmen that Cummiskey is impressed with so far.

“I think a couple of our freshmen had some really good swims,” Cummiskey said. “Matt Palguta had a good day. Justin Meyn was very good. Jackson Homan showed us some stuff. On the women’s side, we had some good swims — Meadow Perez in the fly and Audrey Pesek had a good backstroke swim in the 200. She had the best time, so that was really good.”

In addition to all the freshmen and the head coach, there is another new face on the team: assistant coach Mike Kline. After going without an assistant for close to two months, Kline, a former Division I swimmer at Miami (OH), was hired and began coaching just one week ago.

“Mike had some good experiences in the past with both where he swam and schools where he’s worked at,” Cummiskey said. “Between his experiences and his personality, I think he’ll bring a lot. He’s got some good energy on deck. He knows his ins and outs, technique-wise, training-wise, so he should be a good addition.”

While Cummiskey said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen at Saturday’s tri-meet, he thinks the team is in a good place and wants to use the competition as a way to assess what the team can do at the AE Championship.

“I think we just have to swim our race, focus on what we’re doing and make sure we utilize every one of our races all year to prepare for [the championship],” Cummiskey said. “Everything else is a dress rehearsal for what we do in February.”

The opening meet for the men’s and women’s teams will take place at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19 against Niagara and Siena at the Patricia A. Saunders Aquatic Center in Vestal, New York.