There's excitement buzzing around the Hillsdale College women's swimming and diving team entering the 2023-24 season.
The Chargers enter this new campaign with a roster that's on the smaller size, with 18 swimmers, but packing a mighty punch in terms of quality, headlined by two returning All-American juniors.
Megan Clifford and Elise Mason have excelled for Hillsdale since the first time they got in the pool as freshmen in the fall of 2021, but they enter competition this fall fresh off a breakthrough spring at the national level.
At the 2023 NCAA DII Championships, the pair both used massive personal bests in their signature events to become the first Chargers duo in the 40-plus year history of the women's swimming and diving program to earn NCAA All-American honors at the same meet.
Clifford swam a school-record time of 2:01.27 in the 200 yard butterfly on the way to a seventh-place finish in the nation at the NCAA DII level, while Mason cut 12 seconds off her lifetime best in the 1,650 freestyle to place 11th in the nation and become the first Charger to break the 17 minute mark in the event with a time of 16:59.27.
Returning both Clifford and Mason for 2023-24 is huge for the Chargers, but they're not the only reasons to be excited for what Hillsdale has in store this season. In addition to their two All-Americans, Hillsdale also returns two more extremely gifted swimmers in multi-time G-MAC/MEC champions Caroline Holmes, a senior, and Joanna Burnham, a junior.
Holmes is a past conference champion in the 100 and 200 backstroke, while Burnham has won back-to-back G-MAC/MEC 400 Individual Medley titles and is looking to make it three in a row this season. The Chargers also bring back veteran competitors in Emmalyse Dickhudt, Phoebe Johnston and Sarah Pataniczek who will add to the team's depth.
To this strong core, Hillsdale is adding an exciting class of incoming prospects. Lucia Ruchti, a junior who has two years of competition at Lees-McRae under her belt, should be an instant-impact transfer for the Chargers in the sprint freestyle events.
Many of Hillsdale's seven freshmen also enter college with impressive high school and club backgrounds and should be ready to contribute right away as well. Don't be surprised if multiple of them end up on All-G-MAC teams at the end of the 2023-24 season.
The Chargers' goals for 2023-24 include getting back to the top of the G-MAC/MEC mountain after seeing a string of three straight titles snapped in 2022-23 by Findlay. While the Oilers' superior numbers give them an edge in the team competition, Hillsdale's quality should make them a factor in the race again this year.
Hillsdale also will look to the 2024 NCAA DII Championships hosted from March 13-16 at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, as Clifford and Mason look to return to compete and the Chargers hope to send additional swimmers with the pair to the season-capping event.
The season kicks off on Sept. 23 with Hillsdale's annual Blue-White Intrasquad meet. You can see the whole 2023-24 schedule here.