Swimming & Diving Applications Host Scranton and Hartwick to Start Common Season

ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College males’s and girls’s swimming and diving packages begin the 2025-26 common season this Saturday the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium once they host each the University of Scranton and Hartwick College. Saturday’s occasions will start at 1 p.m.
 
The ladies’s staff is seeking to construct off their sixth-straight Liberty League Championship within the convention championship meet, whereas the boys need to breakthrough after ending second to RIT. The ladies accrued 1,700 factors and a margin of victory of 220.5 factors forward of RPI, and the boys’s staff completed because the runner-up with 1,524 factors behind RIT who earned its fourth-straight Liberty League title.
 
The Bombers are guided by third 12 months head coach Mike Blakely-Armitage ’00 and assistants Chris Griffin, Paula Miller, Lara Mitchell, Taryn Wisner and Emily Snyder.
 
“For the women’s team, our goal is to maintain our strong culture and championship mindset,” mentioned Blakely-Armitage. “We’re focused on breaking through in close meets against tough non-conference opponents, while helping our first years develop so they feel like seasoned competitors by midseason.”
 
“On the men’s side, we aim to continue our academic excellence by achieving a team GPA of 3.5 or higher,” mentioned Blakely-Armitage. “To make a breakthrough at the Liberty League Championships, we’ll need meaningful contributions from every class—seniors, juniors, sophomores, and first years. That collective effort will be key to our success this season.”
 
New Faces
Ithaca welcomes a gifted freshman class in 2025, that includes 9 newcomers on the boys’s staff and eight first years on the ladies’s aspect, together with two divers.
 
Replacing two-time nationwide champion Kailee Payne on the 1-meter and 3-meter boards can be no simple job however anticipated to step up for the Bombers are first-year Madison Morris, junior Emily Provost, and sophomore Maya Hathorn.
 
Who’s Back
Captains Elke Beaumont, Kathleen Papiernik, and Sierra Houck return to steer the ladies’s staff in 2025. Papiernik earned All-Liberty League First Team honors final season after profitable the 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard particular person medley, and contributing to the Bombers’ victory within the 800-yard freestyle relay on the Liberty League Championship.
 
Also returning are fellow All-Liberty League First Team picks Samantha Bender (200-yard backstroke), Sydney Koehler (200-yard breaststroke), and Claire Weppler (400-yard particular person medley).
 
Weppler was named the Liberty League Rookie of the Year after scoring probably the most particular person factors amongst all first 12 months swimmers on the championship meet. She captured the 400-yard particular person medley title with a personal-best time of 4:33.70, profitable by practically six seconds. Weppler additionally earned All-Liberty League Third Team honors with a third-place end within the 200-yard breaststroke (2:22.47) and a seventh-place displaying within the 200-yard particular person medley (2:10.05).
 
The Bombers return a powerful core on the boys’s aspect, led by graduate scholar Matthew Mitros and captains Ryan Cooke and Matthew Janssen. Mitros and Cooke each earned All-Liberty League First Team honors final season within the 50-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, respectively.
 
Also returning are Alec Kutsner, Evan Wardrop, Marshall Adams, Spencer Alderson, James Kissel, and Bennett Molitor-Kirsch, who can be counted on to supply management and consistency throughout a variety of occasions. With expertise unfold throughout all lessons, the boys’s staff is poised to construct on final season’s momentum and make a push on the Liberty League Championships.
 
The Schedule

The Bombers’ 2025–26 schedule options eight meets and two separate diving invitationals. The season opens with a tri-meet in opposition to Scranton and Hartwick, adopted by a house meet in opposition to Hobart & William Smith College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, October 25.
 
IC then hits the highway for 3 consecutive twin meets at RPI (Nov. 1), Cortland (Nov. 8), and RIT (Nov. 22), earlier than returning dwelling to host the three-day Bomber Invitational starting Thursday, December 6.
 
After the winter break, the Bombers host Hamilton College on January 17, then journey to the University of Rochester the next week. Diving will host the Dick Comanzo Invitational on Sunday, January 25. Both packages will then have a good time Senior Day with a house meet in opposition to SUNY Geneseo at 1 p.m. on January 31. The last common season occasion is the Geneca Diving Invitational on February 7. The Bombers will then host the Liberty League Championships at Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium from February 18–21.