Men's Swimming and Diving

Your gift to the Crusader Athletics Fund will help to provide a more competitive experience for our student-athletes. Make your gift today.

You showed your dedication to our student-athletes’ journies to excellence, and it was an amazing day of giving. Crusaders across the globe came together to contribute the highest single-day total in Holy Cross Athletics Giving Day history. We look forward to sharing final results next week.

Today, you went All In for Crusader Athletics. You showed the power of the Holy Cross community and committed to the continued development of ethical leaders, champion athletes, and men and women for and with others.

Thank you for your support and dedication to this special family. We wouldn’t be who we are without you, and we are humbled by your generosity.

Our next great moment awaits.

Go Cross Go!

It’s been an incredible day of giving in support of our Crusader student-athletes! With four hours to go, we are on our way to a record-breaking day for Holy Cross Athletics.

Join us in the final hours and go All In for the programs that mean the most to you!

A group of generous alumni and parents have now come forward with a $50,000 challenge to inspire the entire Holy Cross community!

At the conclusion of Crusaders All In Giving Day, $5,000 will be awarded to the five programs with the highest percentage of alumni participation AND to the five programs with the highest total donor participation. 

Find out how your team is doing!

Also, thanks to the Hope + Access campaign, all new and increased gifts to Athletics are matched 100% for financial aid.

Go All In today in support of our student-athletes and their continued growth as leaders and champions. Our teams need you!

May 14, 2021

Today, I’m asking you, and all Crusaders, to go ALL IN.

All year, our student-athletes have dedicated themselves to looking towards the future, growing stronger as individuals and teammates athletically, academically and personally.

With fortitude, we are continuing to prepare our 700 Crusaders to compete at the highest level. Just as they are committed to training and learning, to capitalizing on the opportunities in front of them, we are committed to our vision – delivering a transformative student-athlete experience driven by competitive success. 

Year after year, regardless of the circumstances, one thing remains constant — the strength of Crusaders when we go ALL IN for one another. Every dollar you give today will be dedicated to continuing our tradition of developing champions. And today, thanks to the Hope + Access campaign, all new and increased gifts are being matched 100% for financial aid. 

Together, we are strong. Together, we shape our future. Together, let’s go ALL IN for Crusader student-athletes.

Go Cross Go! 

Marcus Blossom

Director of Athletics

April 30, 2021 

Holy Cross Swimming and Diving Family, Friends, and Supporters,

It has been quite a while since I last communicated, and it has been an interesting journey this season! The pandemic has affected so many parts of our lives, but I hope you all remained safe and healthy throughout the past year.

As you know, last summer the Patriot League announced that all fall sports were postponed until spring and the College made the decision to move to a fully remote teaching format for the fall semester. Some of our athletes were able to continue training if they could access pools, and we encouraged dry-land, cardio and weight-training when possible. We kept in touch with the team via zoom meetings and a few swimmers who were living near campus were able to access the Luth Athletic Complex if they were in the College’s Covid-19 testing protocol.

Our swimmers and divers all returned to campus on January 25 and we were finally in the water on January 28 once the athletes quarantined and were cleared for practice. When practices started, we were mandated to follow a return to play protocol to reintroduce our athletes to training with a goal of avoiding injury. Several of our swimmers and divers did not have access to train in the pool for almost a year. It took a little over a month to get the athletes built up to 100% in practices. Ultimately that meant that we had a 10 week swim season that included two “pauses” for an increase in positive Covid cases on campus that kept us out of the pool for another 8 days. The League also cancelled our championship meet and replaced this with a series of Patriot League Challenge meets at different locations. We were assigned to swim at Colgate with BU for a two-day meet on April 17-18.

Despite the condensed training timeline (and all of the challenges and last minute changes), we had a very successful season. We amended our schedule to swim two virtual meets and two in-person meets. We started the season with a virtual dual meet against American University followed by two in-person meets against Providence and Boston University. For the PC and BU meets, we sent our men to their facilities and hosted the women on our campus. We then had a virtual two-day, three-session meet against five of the Patriot League teams including Colgate, Lehigh, Lafayette, American, and Loyola. We planned a short “rest” for this meet and the swimmers wore their tech suits. The conclusion of the season was our trip to Colgate for the Patriot League Challenge meet.

On the men’s side, we had a small team on campus with 13 swimmers and two divers. Five opted not to return to campus for various reasons and one incoming freshman deferred to this coming academic year. We did have two men on the diving boards which was encouraging. Even with the small group, we had great success with our 13 swimmers posting 30 personal record swims and 10 of the 13 having at least one PR.

The women also had a stellar season posting several new records. During our virtual invitational meet the women, with the assistance of our new starting blocks, broke 12 of our pool records and finished second of the six Patriot League teams competing. At the Colgate Invitational, freshman Greta Walting broke the pool and team records in the 100 Breaststroke and she also broke the team record in the 200 Breaststroke. Senior Emily Sullivan broke the Colgate pool record in the 400 IM.

I am incredibly proud of our swimmers. This was not an easy year for so many reasons, but our athletes worked incredibly hard in and out of the pool, juggling changes in academic schedules and practice schedules but most importantly staying healthy and safe. We all feel grateful that we had the opportunity to compete this year. I am particularly proud of our captains and seniors. This was not the final season they hoped for, but I am certain that they will look back on this year and find the silver linings. Graduation is taking place in just a few weeks and they will leave campus with the full support of our entire swimming and diving squad and our alumni swimming and diving community.

I also want to take a moment to thank my assistant coach, Emily Parillo. Emily joined our team in October of 2019 and will be leaving next month to return to school and pursue a Master’s Degree in Sports Management. She has been instrumental in developing our program as well as each student-athlete on the team the past three seasons. We have launched a search and I will keep you posted on our progress.

As I look ahead, I am already very excited about next season. We have a terrific group of incoming swimmers and divers on both the men's and women’s teams. We have two new female divers coming in bringing our women’s dive team to six next year. On the swimming side, we have five men and five women joining the roster. These new additions will continue to add depth and power to the team as I strive to move our program into the top half of the Patriot League.

Each year I strive to provide our athletes with a better experience than the previous year. To do this, we need your continued support. We were fortunate to have our new starting blocks installed during the fall semester and they have made a big difference for our team — thank you!  With your help, I would like to fund some new training equipment for the coming season. As our teams get faster, we need to keep up with their training.

Please save the date for our annual Athletics Giving Day on Friday, May 14. We hope you will consider supporting our team on this day! As always, please reach out if you have any questions. I remain grateful for your investment in Holy Cross and our terrific student-athletes and I hope to see some of you in person soon!

Go Crusaders!

Jeff Barlok

Head Coach

We are in awe of and so very grateful for our supporters who continue to go All In for our student-athletes. Your generosity allows us to prepare our Crusaders for a stronger tomorrow as they strive to succeed and lead in athletics, in the classroom and in their communities.

Please accept our heartfelt thanks for your support! Holy Cross would not be what it is today without the participation and dedication of Crusader Nation.  

Holy Cross student-athletes are dedicated and resilient. When our world — and in turn, our campus life — changed this year, we adapted. Through challenge after challenge, our commitment to our education and our athletics never faltered. And today, we remain focused and hopeful for the future.

This is why we are asking the Holy Cross community to come together right now in support of our student-athletes.

Whether you make a gift to the Fund for Athletics Excellence or to one of our 27 varsity teams, your generosity helps position us for an even stronger return to competition.

In the face of unprecedented challenges, we know that one thing remains constant — the strength of Crusaders when we go all in to support one another. On this Giving Tuesday, your gift is for our future. With your support, our next great moment awaits.

Greetings from a very quiet Holy Cross campus. I hope this email finds you all safe and healthy as we continue to manage our lives during this pandemic. As you may have heard, Holy Cross went to a virtual teaching environment this semester with very few students actually living on campus. The Patriot League also postponed all fall sports and we are awaiting their decision on the Winter sports seasons. Even though we start practices on the first day of classes in September, Swimming and Diving is considered a winter sport. The College will be making an announcement in the coming weeks regarding the student’s return to campus for the spring semester. I am optimistically hopeful that we will have most students back and we will have some form of a modified swim season.

Currently, Holy Cross has over 600 students living off-campus in the Worcester area and most of them have been granted limited access to campus for various reasons. We have thirteen swimmers living off-campus and one on campus. We are fortunate to allow them access to the Luth Athletic Complex three times a week, so we have been running practices Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings for these swimmers. The rest of our team is training remotely throughout the country and we meet regularly for team zoom meetings. I am particularly proud of our team captains who have been great about scheduling remote team gatherings and events. This year’s captains are Colin Johanson ’21, Andrew Magel ’21, Chris Cerulli ’21, Emily Sullivan ’21, and Lauren Moran ’21.

This year we welcomed five male swimmers and two divers plus six female swimmers and two divers to our rosters. I know this is not how these class of 2024 teammates imagined starting their collegiate swimming careers, but they are bonding through this shared experience! We also had one female diver and one male swimmer defer for a year and they will join us next September. We continue to add talent and depth to both programs. Recruiting is going well for the high school class of 2021. Our future is looking very bright!

Some of you may have already seen on social media our new starting blocks that were installed two weeks ago. If not, we have included a link to the video of this exciting addition to our pool. Thank you to all that contributed to the Parenteau Fund two years ago. Without your support, we would not have been able to replace the circa 1983 starting blocks. It is your financial support that allows us to improve our student-athlete experience. This pandemic has been a huge financial strain on the College as well as the athletic department, so now, more than ever, we need your continued support.

You will be receiving an invitation in the coming month for Holy Cross Swimming and Diving virtual social hour. I hope this will be a fun opportunity to meet friends and former swimming colleagues and to hear a more detailed update on our plans for the winter/spring and future seasons. I certainly look forward to a “non-virtual” time when we can gather once again on campus or at our travel meets.

Thanks again for your continued support of our program and our students.  

Go Cross Go,

Jeff Barlok P19

Head Coach