Florida Southern Swimming Opens Season at Florida Tech

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College men's and women's swimming teams open the 2024-25 season this weekend against Sunshine State Conference opponent Florida Tech. The meet will begin at 11 a.m. at the Panther Aquatic Center in Melbourne.
 
2024-25 Season Opener
Opponent – Florida Tech
Date – Oct. 18 at 11 a.m.
Location – Panther Aquatic Center | Melbourne, Fla.
Live Video (weather permitting)- https://www.sunshinestateconference.tv/floridasouthern/
 
The Mocs are eager to start a new season after last week's scheduled season opener had to be canceled due to Hurricane Milton. Florida Southern will open the academic year with several new faces to replace last year's success on the men's side with a third-place conference finish and 13^th overall at the NCAA Finals. The women's squad placed fourth at SSC and a 29^th finish at the national stage. The highlight of the 2023-24 season was Florida Southern crowning its 28^th NCAA Individual National Champion with a program-first 50 freestyle win by Kyle Micallef.
 
"The Sunshine State Conference is one of the most competitive conferences in Division II," said head coach Andy Robins. "We are anxious to get the season started and have competitive swimming. It is always difficult to replace talented swimmers who graduated, but we have a strong class of freshmen and transfers who are excited to get to work and looking forward to the new season's challenges."
 
Men's Team
Florida Southern had several returners from the 2023-24 men's team, including two NCAA qualifiers and two relay alternates combining for 10 All-American honors from last season's national run. Highlighting the returners is SSC and FSC record-holder Brandon Wilson, who had an incredible showing at the 2024 NCAA Finals with consolation finals wins in the 50 free and 100 back after qualifying from his first 100 back SSC title in the 2024 conference meet and All-SSC Second Team nod.


Another NCAA qualifier returning after a great freshman season is Peter Csicsaky, who was named All-SSC Third Team as a distance swimmer. He had a fourth-place finish at the SSC finals and competed in the 1650, 1000, and 500 free at the national meet, all top times on the team. Joining Csicsaky as NCAA swimmers are Nino Viallon and John Zeiger, both swimmers highly commended by coach Robins after the early weeks of practice.
 
Outside of those who have represented the Moccasins at the 2024 NCAA Championships, FSC returned Thomas Wooldridge and Clyde Crouse representing distance swimming, and Niko Frese and Reese Whelan as great IM contributors. William Eriksson has impressed in a combination of back, free, and fly events so far this preseason and joins Tristan Clanton (IM/Fly) as a rising upperclassman for the Mocs. Five from the 2023-24 freshman class return with a year under their belt: Csicsaky, Shawn Erdley (Breast/IM), Erick Magalhaes (Free/Fly), Travis Oleson (Breast), and Walter Christman (Breast/IM). Each is strong in garnering points and depth at meets and conference championships to boost team scores.
 
A massive signing class for coach Robins with nine incoming freshmen. With a large number of freestyle events in need of filling holes lost by graduation, Bennett Baer, Daniel Cushing, Gianni Famiano, William King, Will Neville, and Michael Tretyakov all provide much-needed depth and competition for the free events. Corbin Cole (Back), Cooper Krance (Breast), and Cormac McKenney have also joined the Mocs this season. As for transfers, Robins added three to this year's squad, beginning with Anton Akopian, a grad transfer from Emmanuel University, the Conference Carolinas Champion in 2023-24. Matheus Da Rocha joins FSC from Delta State, second place in the NSISC Championship, where Da Rocha had a podium finish in the 100 free. The final transfer is Janek Barczyk, a transfer from Montevallo, where he was the first freshman in program history to qualify for nationals and be crowned conference champion in the 100 breaststroke and All-NSISC First Team winner.
 
Women's Team
Lots of changes for the Florida Southern women's squad in 2024-25, though still returning several key contributors to last year's fourth-place SSC team. All three of FSC's All-SSC winners return with Ainsley Bennett (Sophomore from Hannibal, Mo.), Olivia Miles, and Alizee Pelletier. Pelletier won the only Moccasin individual SSC title for the women last season, before joining Miles and Elizabeth Sikes as NCAA qualifiers. Miles continues to dominate in the distance and mid-free events, with an impressive freshman year by Bennett to capitalize on. Pelletier will once again be a top SSC female in the breaststroke and an NCAA hopeful this season. FSC returners on the women's side combine for six All-American honors in their career.
Additional returners for FSC include Ainsley Bennett (Junior from Ocala, Fla.) and Anya Bogdanova, both with three-plus years on the team.  Angelina Fazzino had a productive freestyle year last season filling several mid to long-distance swim events, as did Phoebe Reid in free, breast, and fly events. Emma Sammons continues for her third year as a free and fly participant, and Vanda Voroshazy returns for a graduate student year after last season's successful IM and fly events.
 
Three freshmen have been added to this season's squad with Zoë Celi taking on backstroke, Alexa Paredes in the breaststroke, and Kaitlyn Weitz in the free events. Three transfers sum up the 2024-25 team beginning with Lauren Helminiak, a free and back swimmer from Washington and Lee University. Sam Hunter joins from Gardner-Webb University as a free, fly, and IM athlete and Ana Sales is a junior from St. Thomas University.
 
Coaching Staff
Entering his seventh season with the Mocs, Robins is joined once again by Maddie Samples as his assistant coach. Robins has extensive experience at the collegiate level in coaching and has many accolades at the helm for Florida Southern. The 2021-22 SSC Coach of the Year, Robins led the Mocs to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA tournament that year, including FSC's 27^th individual national champion in Ludo Viberti in the 100 breast. He went on to coach FSC's 28^th individual national champion when Micallef won the 50 free at the 2024 Finals. At the conference level, Robins led the men's team to an SSC title in 2021-22 and has coached swimmers to 25 SSC individual titles and 167 All-American honors in his six seasons. Samples is in her third season with the Mocs having helped FSC to a great NCAA showing the past two years and several conference and national accolades.
 
Florida Southern College Swimming
Both the men's and women's swimming teams at FSC have a storied history at the conference and national level. The Mocs have been National Runner-Up as a team two times in 2013 and 2014 under the recently named SSC Coach of the Decade Duncan Sherrard. The women's team has one SSC title with its best NCAA finish seventh on two different occasions under Sherrard. The men's team has been SSC's best on five different occasions, the last being 2021-22 with Robins and previously four years from 2013-2016.
 
The FSC swimming teams combined for 12 NCAA Individual National Championships (28 total for FSC) with two women's swimmers, Mary O'Sullivan and SSC Female Swimmer of the Decade Allie Crenshaw national champions. The men have SSC Male Swimmer of the Decade winner Jeb Halfacre with Matthew Holmes, Ludovico Viberti, and Kyle Micallef (the program's first winner in the 50 free at the 2024 finals). The men's team also holds six NCAA Relay National Championships, the last of which was in 2016, with the 200 and 400 medley relays. Florida Southern has also been represented on the world stage with three Olympians, two at the most recent 2024 Paris Olympics with Viberti (Italy) and Micallef (Malta), FSC's last two individual national champions.