Despite having no pool in the pre-season, the Ithaca College women’s swimming and diving team has started the regular season off strong with a 3-1 record so far — demonstrating that the Bombers are ready to compete for a sixth straight Liberty League Championship win.
The team faced some challenges in 2023-24 with its first season under new head coach Mike Blakely-Armitage ’00, finishing with a 10-4 record and losing many top-performing seniors to graduation. Last season, despite the Bombers winning the Liberty League, the team finished 5-2 in conference competition, just short of the expectations set by the previous undefeated season. The team fell at the hands of the RPI Engineers and the RIT Tigers in 2023-24, two teams who look to challenge the Bombers for the Liberty League Championship title in February.
This season, the team has brought down the Scranton University Royals, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Engineers and the Roger Williams University Hawks, along with a loss to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers.
Following a tough defeat at the hands of the Engineers, Blakely-Armitage said the competition within the Liberty League will be the toughest component on the schedule for the team this season.
“We had a lot of promising performances by both swimmers and divers against RPI,” Blakely-Armitage said via email. “The Engineers were also wearing tech suits that aid their performance in swim races. As part of our training plan, we chose to not wear them as we are focusing on meets later in our schedule, RIT, Bomber Invite and Liberty League Champs. I am confident that the performances that we had this weekend put us in a good position to be a top team in our league this year.”
Coming off of last season’s strong performances, where 16 swimmers individually made the program’s top-20 list in a number of events, Blakely-Armitage said he looks forward to seeing the growth of the returning swimmers.
Blakely-Armitage said that amongst the breakout athletes, sophomore freestyle/backstroke/individual medley (IM) swimmer Samantha Bender, junior freestyle/butterfly/IM swimmer Naomi Fry and senior freestyle swimmer Kerry O’Brien are expected to make great strides this season.
Sophomore butterfly/IM swimmer Kathleen Papiernik, who broke the team record by 1.71 seconds in the 200-yard butterfly at the Liberty League Championship last season with a time of 2:07.91, said the team spent pre-season outside of the pool because the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium was unavailable for scheduled maintenance. She said the team trained with exercises they do not normally try such as running to maintain aerobic strength. Despite not having a pool, the team was still prepared for the opening month of the season.
Papiernik is off to a strong start this season. The sophomore swam a 2:36.21 in the 200-yard breaststroke in the season-opening win over the Royals, as well as a 2:16.74 in the 200-yard IM against the Engineers and Hawks to lead the team.
Papiernik, who also holds the third fastest time in program history in the 100-yard butterfly, said she has high hopes of continuing to shatter records and accomplishing her ultimate goal of reaching the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in March.
Familiar to the national stage is senior diver Kailee Payne, who transferred to the college from Division I Marshall University in 2023. She is looking to build off of an impressive first season with the Bombers where she won the national titles in both the 1 and 3-meter diving events.
Payne said her expectations for this season have not changed individually or for the team, emphasizing making the most of every opportunity while enjoying the moment with her teammates.
“Of course I’m looking for a repeat of last year because that would be an incredible end to my diving career,” Payne said. “I just want to walk away happy and taking away the most that I can from the sport and my team. We are such a power force when it comes to Ithaca College swimming and diving. We are truly a family and it feels so special.”
With her two individual national championships, Payne joined an exclusive club, marking the third individual national champion in program history and the second time in three seasons that a Bomber has claimed an individual national title on the boards. She follows Ava Lowell ’22, who won the 3-meter dive national title with a score of 486.45 in 2022. Payne scored 515.15 points in the 1-meter dive and 509.50 points in the 3-meter dive.
Payne said the sense of community and the team’s like-minded commitment to sending a large group to nationals is what led to her joining the Bombers as a junior.
“[The team was] really with me every step of the way when I reached some pretty low lows, even my high highs,” Payne said. “They really stood with me every step of the way,” Payne said. “But it’s also this work ethic that I have and I’ve had since day one. I want to keep pushing myself and I want to be at the top.”
Diving coach Chris Griffin said the team is hoping to send another large group of divers to nationals with a heavy upperclassmen presence and a new class of first-year students.
“We have some very strong returners,” Griffin said. “With Kailee Payne, last year’s national champion on 1 and 3 meter, and Angela Burke, who was at nationals last year. So, hoping for them to have another strong showing at nationals this year. And we’ve got some young up-and-comers who were training to kind of help start to refill in those ranks as some of our seniors graduate out.”
Following last season’s championship, Blakely-Armitage said the team is emphasizing building consistent performances throughout the season, while also focusing on recruiting the next great first-year class to fill in holes and eliminate the team’s weak points.
“I think we’ll get there based on some talent that we have,” Blakely-Armitage said. “But in order to have a consistent presence, it means that your depth also has to be really good too. So we’re recruiting depth, and we think we’ve recruited that this year, and so we have some strong first-years that I think will really add to our depth in [each] event.”
Blakely-Armitage said for the team to reach its dominant presence in seasons past, the team needs to maintain that mindset that every race is a championship race.
“I think our work ethic is strong but the consistency in training is something that truly makes people better and faster over the long term,” Blakely-Armitage said. “They’re learning about being competitive when it matters the most, and not only just being fast at our championship meets, but being consistently fast throughout the year and kind of practicing that racing.”
The Bombers return to the pool at 1 p.m. Nov. 9 against the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons at the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium.
