By Esteban Ramirez
Assistant Sports Editor

Despite having a young men’s team, California State University, Bakersfield swim coach Chris Hansen likes the potential of this year’s team, but he’s also excited about returning most of the women from last year’s team.

“I’m just so excited with this year’s team,” said Hansen. “The whole team in general is just so hungry and easy to deal with. We can’t say that too often now a days, but we have 43 people that want to be here, to compete and swim fast.

“The men’s team is going to be much better than last year. Recruiting went really well. It’s the first time in many years that I have a freshmen class that looks hungry to win.”
The women’s team is more experienced than the men’s team.

“The women’s team is going to be pretty much the same, but we’re expecting each one to get faster. We only have two new women (Aubrey Willoughby and Midori Dobson) joining the team.”
CSUB will start the regular season with a meet at Grand Canyon University on Oct. 18.

“There hasn’t been any [difficult] adjustment for the men’s team. It has been easy,” said Hansen on the adjustment of trying to coach a younger team. “We’ve had big freshmen classes before, but this year has just been really easy. They want to be here, they want to swim faster and they want to do well in school. It makes a coach’s life a lot easier.”

Some of the key returners for the men’s team are: senior Mitchell Huxhold, who was the Western College Athletic champion in the 500 and 1650 freestyle; senior Gabriel Bertrand, who earned All-Conference honors last year; junior Brett Emery, who last year posted the 5th fastest time in CSUB history in the 100 breaststroke; senior Dennis Cassidy, who last year finished 20th in the WAC Championships and senior Justin Young, who last year qualified for the finals in the 200 fly at the WAC Championships.

On the women’s team, the key returners are: junior Michaela Paige, who won four Western Athletic Conference titles last year, senior Delise Batiza, who earned 1st team All-Conference honors, sophomore Paola Hernandez, who also earned All-Conference honors last year, junior Nicolette Goncalves, who earned 2nd team All-Conference honors last season and Lauren, who also earned 2nd team All-Conference honors last season.

Some of the key new swimmers and divers are freshman Mario Vasquez from El Centro, Calif., Dorian Holler from Albuquerque, N.M., Ethan Pollock from Eagle Mountain, Utah and walk-on Joseph Cobarrubias from Fresno, Calif.

“In the distance events, getting back Mitchell Huxhold, who had the ninth fastest time in the country in the mile last year, is big,” said Hansen on the strengths of the team. “I don’t know if we are swimming anybody that can beat him, so that makes life easier in those events. For the 100 fly, we have newcomer Mihael Vukic (from Croatia). He is the European champion in the 100 fly. He has a lot of talent just needs some fine tuning, but I believe he’s going to do good for us. Another newcomer from Croatia is Lovre Soric, and he is going to dominate the 100 freestyle and the 200 IM.”

He said the strength on the women’s team is returners Paige, Batiza and Hernandez from last year’s team.

“All three of them are WAC champions, and scored their most points for us last year,” said Hansen. “We didn’t lose anybody on the women’s side that was a big-time player, but we didn’t gain anybody that’s going to be a big-time player either, so we’re going to count on these three ladies heavily.”

Hansen said that the one area the women’s team needs the most improvement in is the breaststroke because of youth, and for the men’s team it is being short-handed with its sprinters.
“We need more than what we have,” he said. “We have great, but we need the second half of the sprint core to really stand up. If they do that, I don’t think we will have a weak spot on the men’s side this year.”