The Ithaca College men’s and women’s swim and dive teams have been some of the college’s most successful athletic programs since the school joined the Liberty League in 2017-18, with the women’s team hunting down a school record seventh consecutive Liberty League Championship Tournament title. The key to each team’s success, according to the athletes, is their team chemistry.
Although not as decorated as their counterparts, the men’s swim and dive team is consistently a top two finisher in the league, despite being without a Liberty League title to show its success.
The teams are separate, but operate under the same head coach, Mike Blakely-Armitage ’00. This means both programs are held to the same standards and have parallel team cultures.
Blakely-Armitage stresses team culture to all of his athletes. He said that re-teaching culture is something he believes in as opposed to the “set and forget” that some coaches opt for.
“We have five values that are a part of our program,” Blakely-Armitage said. “Growth, integrity, communication, passion and respect. Those are five things that we try to incorporate in everything we do day-to-day even for coaches.”
For Blakely–Armitage, the success starts by communicating with team captains to ensure the standards are known to all the athletes. Senior swimmer Elke Beaumont, who has been a captain of the women’s team the last two seasons, has seen this process play out in real time.
“I know a lot of people look up to me,” Beaumont said. “But also, it’s now more like I’m looking at other people to see [that] these people are such strong leaders now. … It’s not necessarily [about] people looking up to me as much anymore. It’s making sure people feel empowered to lead.”
Both teams contain traits that set them apart from most other athletics programs. Each team has leaders up and down their roster, from first-year athletes to seniors. In fact, sophomore swimmer Bennett Molitor-Kirsch can even see his fellow sophomores playing vital roles in team culture.
For the underclassmen, being a leader can come in many different forms. Sometimes as simple as just cheering one another on.
“Sometimes it can get on your nerves, but it’s awesome,” Molitor-Kirsch said. “You’re in the middle of a hard set and you just hear [sophomore swimmer Elijah Gehman] from across the pool go, ‘let’s go, bombs.’ And it kind of pisses you off, but it’s kind of awesome.”
With the swim and dive season typically starting in mid-October, each team hits the halfway point in their schedule before the end of the fall semester. Like most winter sports, winter break does not mean the grind of the season comes to a halt.
At the start of the new year, both teams travel to Florida for a week of training. Although days start early and the teams ultimately are there to train, the aspect the swimmers take away from the trip is the improved locker room chemistry.
“Going to Florida, I think the biggest point of it is creating this group,” Molitor-Kirsch said. “One cohesive team, instead of … a bunch of different little cliques, that’s not what we are. Everybody’s always close. If you walk into a class or a dining hall and you see a swimmer, it doesn’t matter who it is. You always know them. You always go sit by them. We’re very close in that way.”
With typically no competition for over a month at the start of the winter, the months of December and January can get mentally challenging for both teams. Blakely-Armitage uses the training trip not only as a break from the Ithaca winter, but also as a reminder to his athletes the core of their team culture.
“[The] five values are a big deal, even during our training trip,” Blakely-Armitage said. “This year … we gave out awards based on each of those values, [and] who’s embodying those values. It’s something that we try to make sure we’re talking about.”
After the winter break grind, the mental countdown until Liberty League Championships begin. Most teams try to save their “best” competition for the end of their season. For swim and dive, it is full throttle, even down the final stretch of meets leading up to postseason competition.
During that last stretch of meets, coach Blakely-Armitage stresses avoiding complacency. One way of dealing with the issue is meeting privately with select athletes.
“I’m meeting with one of our captains to talk about his events for Liberty Leagues, I’m having one-on-one meetings with people to talk about the next four weeks,” Blakely-Armitage said. “[They’re] kind of reminders of what we’ve been talking about all year, but also [that] these are your goals, we got four more weeks, stay on it.”
For the swimmers and divers, it does not get any easier. On their quest for a seventh consecutive Liberty League Championship, the swimmers ramp it up.
“For Liberty Leagues, or bigger meets, we wear tech suits,” Beaumont said. “You’re not dropping drastic amounts of time by the end, but you’re used to how you feel racing fast. … So that is a big motivator for people to [realize] … ‘I can definitely do this and I’m gonna be so much better in two weeks when I’m rested and feeling my best.’”
As the men’s team remain chasing their first Liberty League title, the message has been clear from the start, as stated on a sign on the wall of their locker room, “We win together.” Achieving its first Liberty League title as a team requires a strong mentality, something that Molitor-Kirsch sees as vital.
“Nobody really wants to wake up at seven, go to lift, and then swim right after, then swim again in the afternoon,” Molitor-Kirsch said. “But if you put into perspective what you’re doing … [then you can] keep that end goal in mind and know what you’re doing leads to the biggest goal in the end.”
The men’s team seeks to recreate their performance from earlier in the season when they beat Rochester Institute of Technology, seemingly the only school that has stood between the Bombers and a Liberty League title since 2023.
The final men’s and women’s swim and dive meet is at noon Feb. 7 at Rochester Institute of Technology. After that, the Liberty League Championship season starts at 10 a.m. Feb. 18 on South Hill at the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium.
“You’ve trained so much,” Beaumont said. “You might be feeling tired, but we still have a lot of time to build and get better. You just need to kind of keep believing in yourself and the team will support you in that.”
