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EZ Cash of Delaware, Inc., Athlete of the Week nominees for Feb. 16-22
Here are the EZ Cash of Delaware, Inc., Athlete of the Week nominees for Feb. 16-22.
The 2024-25 season for Salisbury University’s ladies’s swimming staff was a historic one, as they received their first-ever convention championship and had their first-ever All-American swimmer in Sydney McCallie. It was a banner yr for the Sea Gulls’ swimming program, and coming into the 2025-26 season, eyes have been on SU to see simply how they’d comply with up these latest accomplishments.
The Sea Gulls would come into the season deciding that only one convention title wasn’t sufficient, as they not too long ago defended their NJAC Conference Championship by going back-to-back on the NJAC Swimming and Diving Championships in February. SU’s males’s swimming staff additionally completed second on the NJAC Championships, placing a cap on an extremely profitable convention title marketing campaign for his or her program.
For head coach Nate Parsley, responding to final yr’s success and setting clear objectives was a key level coming into the season that he believes helped carry them towards one other NJAC title.
“I think it’s something we talked about from our first meeting,” Parsley stated in an interview final week. ” Just having to navigate the challenges around having something expected of you. It’s one thing to be an underdog and for you to come out and compete unincumbered by any expectation from others. It was something I knew we needed to talk about early.
“And these first conversations the place we got here collectively as a staff within the early fall, wanting to deal with it: We have been not an unknown entity that did not have stress or expectations. It was a matter of empowering them to be OK with that expectation and stress and to acknowledge it. They say on a regular basis, ‘Pressure is a privlidge,’ however I believe it is stated on a regular basis as a result of it is true.”
Ranked No. 24 in the country, the Sea Gulls responded to that expectation and pressure by leading the NJAC Championships wire-to-wire, dominating the competition on their way to a second consecutive title. And they made history as well, with one of their swimmers breaking a record that was set by McCallie just last year.
Freshman Rowan O’Donoghue finished on the podium seven times at the NJAC Championships, winning five gold medals (800 freestyle relay, 500 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 400 freestyle relay) and two silvers (400 medley relay, 200 free relay), with her seven medals surpassing the previous record of six that McCallie set last year.
O’Donoghue’s success this season becomes even more impressive when looking at what it took for her to achieve it. According to O’Donoghue, her times had not dropped for 7-1/2 years, meaning that her times had not gotten faster since she was 12 years old. After being recruited late in her high school career by SU, she felt at home the second she visited campus.
Arriving at a program that had simply made historical past the season prior, O’Donoghue believes the brand new atmosphere was a particular one which performed an instrumental position in her enchancment.
“It was good as a result of the ladies round me have been the entire purpose I believed I may do it,” O’Donoghue said in an interview last week. “Their supporting me each single day, and supporting one another each single day was one thing that pushed me, undoubtedly.”
And one of those girls supporting her was McCallie, who returned to Salisbury as a graduate assistant coach for SU this season.
“It’s actually nice to be on deck. I beloved getting to remain near the staff and nonetheless be concerned with it,” McCallie said. “It’s been so nice to look at all of the success that the staff has had too. Obviously, it is sort of unhappy when my information get damaged, but in addition, that is sort of the purpose of information, for them to get damaged. We wish to be continuously bettering as a staff, and seeing that occur so rapidly in only one season has been actually unbelievable, understanding that we constructed one thing that is going to develop and maintain bettering.”
For Parsley, the impact of McCallie’s success last year, setting records and making it to Nationals, is still felt in this year’s team, specifically in the belief and confidence it instilled in the group.
“What she did final yr as a pioneer for this system, setting these information on the convention meet after which being the primary feminine to go right down to NCAA and earn NCAA honors, it kicked down the door for everyone else this yr to return again with a distinct degree of perception,” Parsley said. “Everyone that skilled together with her within the water final yr, to then get to search for at her coach, even to a freshman that would not have recognized her identify six months in the past.”
For O’Donoghue, another key figure in both her individual success and the team’s success this season has been the women’s team’s “Lock Talk,” where they meet at least once a month outlining the standards they plan to hold themselves as a team.
“It’s our issues that we stay by each single day,” O’Donoghue says. “We have a bunch of posters in our locker room. It’s similar to the idea of our staff and our expectations. Everyone meets them on a regular basis. We’ll go over our season objectives, or we’ll do staff bonding stuff like going to the pumpkin patch or a haunted home. But it is similar to our time for our ladies’s staff to all be collectively and help one another.”
Salisbury is set to send a number of its women’s and men’s swimmers to the NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships in Indianapolis in March, with O’Donoghue among them. With many of their swimmers going to the nationals not being seniors, it gives them a chance to measure themselves up against the best, learn from the experience, and potentially come back better for it next season.
And for the record setting freshman O’Donoghue specifically, she’s grateful for the the trip to the National Championship considering where she started her college career, and hopes it will be a catalyst towards continued improvement.
“I suppose simply going into this subsequent month, simply being actually grateful that I get to do that,” O’Donoghue said. “Because six months in the past, I’d’ve by no means anticipated this to be a chance. Just engaged on the little issues I may’ve executed higher at conferences, and simply attempt to get these little particulars labored out to possibly simply actually have a higher finish to the race.”
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/sports/college/2026/02/25/salisbury-womens-swimming-defends-title-odonoghue-shines/88775381007/
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