Penn men's swim team moving on without Brendan McHugh

After the graduation of one of the best swimmers in Penn history, the men’s swim team is looking to both its youth and veterans to step up.

Brendan McHugh graduated in May after earning a number of accomplishments during his time at Penn. He broke a number of individual school records including the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke and 400 individual medley.

The records went along with a number of honors, culminating in qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials semifinals in the 100 and 200 breaststroke races, becoming the first Penn swimmer to advance this far in the trials.

As the team’s season gets underway, it is unclear whether it will be the talented freshman class or the veterans on the team — or some combination of the two — that will fill a part of the void left by McHugh’s graduation.

“You can’t replace a swimmer of Brendan’s quality with one kid,” junior Rhoads Worster said. “We have talented freshman breaststrokers, but to put that kind of pressure on them is not only unfair, it’s not realistic. Everybody’s got to step up.”

This weekend provided the first opportunity to see the current swimmers who will step up, and there were a number of promising races, starting with the more experienced Quakers.

The upperclassmen set an example for the younger swimmers with solid performances on Friday and Saturday. Between first-place finishes from Worster and sophomore Sam Ruddy, coupled with some veteran relay teams, Penn has a fine contingent of experience to match its infusion of youth.

On Friday, freshman Chris Swanson won his first collegiate event in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 9:29.66.

“We had kind of a lot of expectations coming into this weekend,” Swanson said. “So I just went out as fast as I could in the very beginning and tried to hold off to get that win.”

This type of mentality mirrors the effort that coach Mike Schnur said he was looking for at the end of the UConn meet on Saturday. He said he wants his swimmers to first and foremost “compete” during this early part of the season.

In the breaststroke events that McHugh dominated for so long, Kyle Yu could be the answer for the Quakers. This weekend, the freshman made a strong case for himself, taking first place in the 100 and 200 breaststroke against both Columbia and UConn.

As the season progresses, other freshmen to keep an eye on include Bradley Wachenfeld, John Germanis and Eric Schultz, who all provided impressive swims over the weekend.

“I think we have a lot of great kids on this team,” Schnur said. “The freshmen are great. They’ve adapted really well, compete at a very high level and we’ve got a bright future.”

SEE ALSO

Penn swimming too much to handle for UConn

McHugh wraps up week in Olympic Trials semis

Men’s swimming finishes sixth at Ivy championships

Penn women’s swimming enters Ivies on a hot streak

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