UMaine names captains for men’s swim team

Brent Williams, Carmen Linden and Yuri Chornobil have been named captains of the 2012-13 University of Maine swimming and diving teams.
Williams, a junior mechanical engineering major, swims distance for the Black Bears. Williams competed locally for Brewer High.
Linden, an America East All-Academic from Ontario, also swims distance freestyle.
Chornobil, a zoology/marine biology major from New York, set Maine’s 1,650 freestyle record this year at the America East championships.

Swim notebook
• Former Orono High and Canoe City YMCA (Old Town) swimmer Kate Kovenock has completed her third year as an assistant coach at the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish finished 22nd in the NCAA Division I championships, their highest finish since 2002.
• Merrimack College in Andover, Mass., has announced that swimming and diving will be added in 2012-13 to the school’s varsity athletic program. Michael Spring has been named  coach. Spring has coached the Crimson Aquatics, a 250 member swim club, since 1994. He also has assisted at Harvard University. Merrimack’s home pool will be the new 50-meter Andover YMCA pool. Merrimack will compete in the Northeast Conference.
• Former Maine age-group swimmer Jenny Roberts, a sophomore at the University of Maryland, split 1 minute, 49.6 seconds on the 17th place Terrapin 800 free relay at the NCAA championships. The Sanford High graduate also split 22.8 in her team’s 13th-place 200 free relay. Earlier this year, Maryland announced swimming and diving was among the eight sports to be eliminated as of June 30th.
• Nicholas Groenewald recently broke his country’s 15- year-old 200-meter individual medley record previously held by Australia’s Ian Thorpe at the Australian age-group championships.
Groenewald clocked a 2:06.1. Thorpe, who retired in 2006, was World Swimmer of the Year in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002. Thorpe returned to training and competition earlier this year to earn a spot on the Australian Olympic team. However, the five-time Olympic champion failed to earn a spot on the team after competing recently at the Australian Olympic Trials.
• The University of Tennessee announced that Matt Kredich has been appointed coach of the Volunteers’ swimming and diving program.
Kredich, who has coached the Volunteer women for seven years, also will assume the coaching and training responsibilities for the men. Earlier this year, Lars Jorgenson was named interim coach of the men following  the dismissal of John Trembley at UT.
This year Kredich’s Lady Volunteer swimmers  finished seventh at NCAAs. The Duke graduate also has ties to New England having coached at Brown University where his teams won two Ivy League titles. He also served as an assistant at Harvard.