Coming off the celebration of senior weekend for Saluki Swimming and Diving, a casual fan may be worried about the future of the program. 

After all, the class contains some of the best swimmers in recent SIU history, including Olympian Celia Pulido, NCAA nationals qualifier Alex Santiago, Donat Czuvarski, Henrique Pacheco, Jules Atkinson, Susana Hernandez, Karen Rodriguez and many others. 

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According to head swim and dive coach Geoff Hanson, the class has been essential to the revitalization of the program. 

“It’s meant a ton… it’s a big class, but it’s a lot of quality swimmers who’ve done a lot of winning at the conference level,” he said. “Their leadership, their experience, they are going to be hard to replace.”

That doesn’t mean that the program is going to immediately fall off, though. Several freshmen have already swum themselves to success in the conference and are poised to carry on the legacy of dominance from SIU.

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Carbondale native Willem Huggins has twice been named the Missouri Valley Conference Men’s Freshman of the Week and has shown how dominant he can be in freestyle and backstroke sprints already. According to Swimcloud, a database for swimming times and scores, Huggins is currently ranked No. 1 in the MVC in the 200-yard backstroke, second in both the 50 and 100-yard backstroke and third in the 50-yard freestyle, with Santiago being the only Saluki better than him.

Rodrigo Ramos Chavez, a freestyler sprinter who joined the team in January, received his first MVC Men’s Freshman of the Week award on Jan. 20. Despite swimming in only one meet, Chavez is ranked second in the MVC in the 200-yard freestyle race.

Liseska Gallegos is perhaps the best of them all, having been named Women’s Freshman of the Week three times while competing in the same backstroke events Pulido has dominated for the past few seasons. Gallegos has the third-best time in the MVC in the 50-yard backstroke, the fourth-best in the 200-yard individual medley and is ranked second in both the 100 and 200-yard backstroke behind only Pulido.

Hanson recognizes that the success of athletes like Santiago and Pulido, whose sustained success has started to forge a strong connection to Mexico, especially in the backstroke events, has helped to attract athletes in those same events.

“It’s helping in our recruiting, bringing in more quality athletes. I think about Celia Pulido and kind of the following that we’ve got from Mexico for women in her events specifically to become interested in this place that never would have been. Same thing on the men’s side with Santiago and some of the sprint depth that we’ve got now,” Hanson said. 

With these kinds of top athletes coming in, SIU is set up for a long stretch of sovereignty.

“It’s those freshmen kind of following in the footsteps of some of those upperclassmen that have come to the program in those events,” Hanson said. “We have a lot of pride in that, they’re keeping it alive.”

For Huggins, the older swimmers have had a big influence on making sure that their younger counterparts are ready to perform and continue what they’ve started.

“They’ve been really good with effort, holding people like me, not just freshmen but everybody accountable for what they’re doing,” Huggins said. “All the seniors in general, because they’ve obviously been through this three, four more times… they know what to expect, and they’re trying to help us realize this is not going to be easy, so you got to be ready.”

Gallegos, who hails from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, has had a similar experience with the older swimmers.

“In this pool, the swimmers are pretty good, and they always give me advice about the events, and how I can swim very fast,” Gallegos said.

For Gallegos especially, some of her teammates have been an extra help as she continues to get used to living and competing in the U.S.

“It’s been a little bit more difficult because I’m adapting to a new culture and country with new teammates and coaches,” Gallegos said. “Just enjoy and keep my responsibility in the pool and just do my best.”

And while freshmen like Gallegos and Huggins have already started to shine, Hanson is confident they will only get better. 

“Everyone does it at a different rate. We have kids who come in and improve incrementally year over year… there are some who come in and really make a huge jump right away,” Hanson said. “And then there are some who kind of stay at a level until they adapt to the program and then make that big jump sophomore, junior year.”

“It’s that buy-in, that they see improvement from people ahead of them and they see their own improvement,” he said. “We’re one of the highest improving programs in the nation… in terms of rate of improvement overall and that’s throughout all divisions.”

Huggins, who has dropped over five seconds in the 200-yard backstroke, is seeing improvement already.

“I think in the past with like swimmers, clubs, swimming… you get better no matter what just from showing up. At college swimming, you got to really put in the work to get better,” Huggins said. “I think just trusting not only the process, but what the coaches do for us, you have to realize they’ve done this before.”

While they will be counted on to continue to improve and carry on the tradition of high-level swimming in future seasons, the one that is nearly at a close is still the focus. 

“With the success that I’ve had in the past, I’ve kind of put it behind me, especially with what we’ve got going on next month,” Huggins said. “Conference is a big deal to us.”

“I said it to the team this morning… We’ve got tremendous top end. We’re going to win more events, we’re going to win relays more than any other team. It’s going to be our depth that helps us get a chance to win the conference itself,” Hanson said. 

Huggins too thinks that a team conference championship is within grasp.

“I don’t think that is very far away. I think we have the team right now that can win, it’s just we got to put it together,” Huggins said.

Sports reporter Ryan Grieser can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook.

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