New Penn State head swimming & diving coach Hollie Bonewit-Cron has introduced the hiring of Nicole McConnell as an assistant coach, finishing their new-look workers for the 2024-2025 season.
McConnell involves this system from Texas A&M, the place she spent two years as a volunteer assistant earlier than being promoted to assistant coach for the 2023-2024 season. Texas A&M additionally introduced in a brand new head coach this season, Blaire Anderson, who introduced her personal workers in.
Penn State selected to “not renew the contract” of former head coach Tim Murphy, who was placed on an “unspecified depart of absence” from his place in the course of the season.
McConnell was a member of the ladies’s workforce workers at A&M, which completed 14th eventually yr’s NCAA Championships.
Previous to becoming a member of the Aggies in a paid position, she labored for 2 years with the Longview Swim Membership in East Texas, for 2 seasons as a graduate assistant on the College of Evansville (together with serving as interim head coach for 2 stints), and as a coach with the Aggie Swim Membership whereas volunteering with the varsity program.
The Nittany Lion males positioned seventh out of eight groups on the Massive Ten Championships in February whereas the ladies positioned ninth out of 12 groups. Penn State didn’t ship any ladies’s swimmers to the NCAA Championships, however three males — Cooper Morley (50 free and 100 again), Victor Baganha (100 fly), and Mariano Lazzerini (100 breast and 200 breast) certified to signify the Nittany Lions subsequent week at IUPUI together with three relays. A number of days earlier than the meet, Baganha scratched out of NCAAs with an undisclosed well being subject.
The lads’s workforce wound up scoring 8 factors to complete thirty fourth on the NCAA Championships. They scored 2 factors through a Sixteenth-place end within the 400 medley relay, whereas Cooper Morley and Mariano Lazzerini every scored 3 factors individually through 14th place finishes within the 100 again and 100 breast, respectively.
Lazzerini was the Massive Ten Champion within the 100 breast. That was Penn State’s fifteenth Massive Ten occasion champion in males’s swimming & diving all-time and first since 2021.
The Penn State ladies completed ninth out of 12 groups eventually yr’s Massive Ten Championships and certified one athlete, a diver, for NCAAs.
After Bonewit-Cron was introduced because the Nittany Lions’ new chief in late Might following 13 years at Miami College in Ohio, she introduced her first few assistants on relatively-quickly. By mid-June, Sean Schimmel was on board as affiliate head coach and and Ethan Curl was employed as assistant coach.
In late July, Ryan Sullivan was added to the workers as an assistant, and now McConnell is the final swim coach rent, whereas Loren Smith has been named head diving coach and Invoice Williams assistant diving coach throughout the final week.
