2007-08 Women's Swimming Outlook

Head coach Steve Kaczmarek begins his fourth year at the helm of the Quakers’ women’s swimming team optimistic. He returns four letter winners from a team that posted a 3-6 mark 2006-07.  The squad set nine school standards in the early portion of the season, and narrowed the scoring gap among several competitors.  Kaczmarek wants to build on the solid foundation established during the team’s first three seasons under his guidance and push Guilford into the upper half of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference standings.

“We came in 10th out of 11 teams in the Atlantic States competition and sixth out of seven in the ODAC once again,” Kaczmarek said. “This upcoming year we’ve got our sights set on beating the teams that we’ve been competitive with over the past three years like Hollins, Randolph, and Sweet Briar. We expect to be much improved in 2007-08 returning our corps of swimmers, along with the addition of new, talented student-athletes.”

Guilford looks to overcome the loss of seniors Kate Talbot ‘07 and Nikki Mallman ‘07, who helped anchor the team during its first three years.  However the Quakers still return a strong group of swimmers, including senior captains Genevieve Holmes and Amanda Oehlert. The duo are the Quakers first four-year letter winners in swimming. Oehlert and Holmes each spent a semester abroad last season, and were only able to compete in half of the season. Justine Merritt (left) also returns as Guilford’s top swimmer from the 2006-07 season. Merritt set six (five individual and one relay) of the nine school records that were broken during the record season for the Quakers.

The Quakers dive into 2007-08 with 10 first-year swimmers, the largest class of swimmers in Guilford history. Newcomers Sarah Stone and Filka Shalamanova are expected to make immediate contributions to the team in butterfly and breaststroke, respectively. Kaczmarek points to this year’s incoming class as his strongest and deepest to date and is confident that the Quakers’ newcomers will add depth and push the experienced student-athletes. 

The Quakers start preparing for 2007-08 in early October with strength and stroke training building their foundation for the strenuous dual-meet season. Guilford opens the year on the road at ODAC power Randolph-Macon along with Randolph in a dual meet. A nonconference dual meet at Salem with Division II St. Andrew’s highlights the next week before Guilford welcomes Bridgewater’s first year program into the ODAC with one of only two home meets of the season. The Quakers are back on the road at the beginning of December for a dual meet with Sweet Briar and King College before the semester break. Emory & Henry travels to Guilford to open the new semester and close out the home meets for the year in mid-January. The Quakers end the regular season on the road with another pair of dual meets. First Guilford travels to Charlotte, N.C. to take on Division II Pfeiffer and Greensboro College before finishing up the regular season in Salem, Va. with ODAC-foes Hollins and Washington and Lee at the beginning of February.  The season culminates with the three-day Atlantic States/ODAC Championships in mid-February.