October 28, 1999.....Contact: John Kean.....Phone: 573-341-4140

SWIMMERS OPEN 1999-2000 CAMPAIGN WITH MEET ON SATURDAY

ROLLA, Mo. -- Even though it will enter the season shorthanded, the University of Missouri-Rolla swimming team still holds high hopes for the upcoming season that will begin Saturday with a meet at Washington University. The Miners will take part in a three-team that will also include Illinois Wesleyan that will start at 1 p.m.

UMR is coming off a season where it finished seventh at the NCAA Division II Championships and has finished among the top 10 in the nation in each of the last three years. The Miners will also have 10 of the 13 swimmers who won All-America honors last season back in competition this winter.

Of the three who are not back, the biggest loss was that of Mark Finley (Florissant, Mo./McCluer North) who will miss the 1999-2000 season with a shoulder injury. However, UMR head coach Doug Grooms emphasized that this Miner team is still capable of sending a number of individuals to the national meet again this year, possibly in the double-figure range for the third straight year.

"We have a lot of strengths on this team," Grooms said. "We have good depth in a majority of the strokes. We're not going to be able to make up the 40 points we lost from the national meet at this late date, but we still have a lot of talent on our team.

"If they are willing to work hard for the entire year, we have a chance to be pretty good," Grooms added. "We've talked with them about just swimming the fastest that they ever have, and if they do, then we'll be pretty good. All we can do is take care of we can do and we'll be successful."

The Miners appear to be solid in most areas in terms of depth, where they have three individuals in most of the strokes. The best may be in the breaststroke, where they return a pair of All-America performers in Bruno Amizic (Split, Croatia) and Jeremy Evans (Bloomington, Ill). Evans won All-America honors in two relays while Amizic, who has been swimming well in pre-season workouts according to his coach, placed 10th at nationals in the 200-breaststroke. Freshman Sean Garceau (San Diego, Calif./Mount Carmel) will also be in the lineup in that event.

In the butterfly, the Miners will also have two returning All-America performers in Steve Caruso (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central) and Matt Scott (Ballwin, Mo./DeSmet). Scott was seventh in the 200-fly and 10th in the 100-fly at nationals last year, while Caruso also won All- America honors in both of those events and as part of the 200-yard individual medley team. Jeff Raggett (Germantown, Tenn.), a returning sophomore, will also compete in this event.

Caruso, along with Garceau and freshman Ben Karstens (Littleton, Colo./Dakota Ridge), will make up the team's individual medley performers.

Karstens will compete in the backstroke as well, where the Miners return another All- America performer in Josh Jolly (Conway, Ark.). Jolly won his honor as part of the 200-medley relay team last year.

In the freestyle events, the Miners will have two returning All-America swimmers in the sprint events in senior Tom Beccue (Mackinaw, Ill.) and sophomore Dave Belleville (Chesterfield, Mo./Marquette). Beccue was his honors in three relay events last year, while Belleville won his in the 200-freestyle relay. They will be joined by incoming freshman Mike Lach (Lenexa, Kan./Shawnee Mission West) in the events; Lach was a top swimmer in the state of Kansas for the past two years.

David Nurre (Lewisville, Texas) and Vanja Dezelic (Zagreb, Croatia), a pair of All-America performers at the 1999 national meet, will head the distance freestyle events. Karstens will also swim in some of the middle distance events.

Grooms is happy with where the medley relay teams are at this point, but does have early concerns with regards to the freestyle relays mainly due to the loss of Finley.

"I think we could be better in the medley relays because we returned everyone," Grooms said. "We have some spots up for grabs right now in the freestyle relays, but I still feel good about that situation because I think we'll be able to fill them. We may not know who it will be until the end of the season."

The Miners will have only two home meets this season. The first is Nov. 12 against defending NCAA Division II champion Drury, and the other is a triangular meet with Southwest Missouri State and Truman State scheduled for Feb. 4. The Miners, who won the Mideast Regional title in six of the last seven years, will compete in a different regional in February this season as they will be part of the Central States Invitational in Springfield, Mo. The meet field will include Drury, which has not been part of the Mideast Regional field in recent years.