Riding back-to-back fifth-place showings at the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships, The College of Wooster has set a goal of moving up two spots to finish third in the preeminent swim conference in NCAA Div. III for the 2009-10 season. While the Fighting Scots have not finished that high since 2002-03, it appears to be a reachable goal as graduation only cost them one key NCAC scorer and they return a veteran group overall.

Leading the way one last time will be the senior trio of Eric Babbitt, Logan LaBerge, and Ryan Radtke. They've formed the backbone of the team throughout their career with a combined 18 top-10 NCAC performances in individual races, including eight of a maximum nine last season.

"Without a doubt, they are still a force to be reckoned with," confirmed Rob Harrington, who enters his seventh season as head coach. "They've continued to improve every year and will be the core of the program this year."

Babbitt, whose story of being a two-time cancer survivor was featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Extraordinary Teens, sprinted his way into the conference's top-10 in all three of his specialty events – the 50 freestyle and 100 and 200 butterfly – a season ago. In both the 50 free (21.07) and 200 fly (1:54.28), he recorded NCAA "B" cut times for the national meet, and previously, he has advanced to the championship finals (top-eight) of the NCAC Championships five times.

LaBerge also posted a pair of "B" cuts for nationals last winter, with his coming in the 100 backstroke (52.45) and the 200 back (1:54.34). Those were both school records, while at the NCAC meet, he came in sixth in the 200 (1:54.95) for the second consecutive year and eighth in the 100 (52.54), as well as 13th in the 500 free (4:44.54).

Radtke lowered his own Wooster record in the 200 IM (1:55.33) and set another in the 400 IM (4:08.52), registering a "B" cut in the latter. Both of those times came at the NCAC Championships, where he took eighth in the 200 IM and 10th in the 400 IM, and added a seventh-place in the grueling 1650 (16:37.44) as the squad's top distance freestyler again.

Another senior who has developed into a top contributor is Tyler Hartley-Shepherd. Specializing in the breaststroke, Hartley-Shepherd narrowly missed the NCAC championship heat in the 100, but bounced back and won the consolation for ninth-place in a school-record time of 59.41. In the 200 breast, he took 12th overall (2:13.66).

In addition to that quartet, the Scots have a number of other veterans who have proven to be valuable scorers at the conference level as well as in dual meets. Complementing LaBerge in the backstroke events will be juniors Adel El-Adawy and Brett Dawson. El-Adawy has been on the verge of reaching an NCAC championship final, including 10th- and 11th-place finishes in the 100 back (53.05) and 200 back (1:55.20) last season, respectively, while Dawson was 12th in the 100 (53.47) and 16th in the 200 (2:02.40).

Another talented junior is Brendan Horgan. He is studying abroad this fall semester, but the coaching staff looks forward to his return and impact in various sprints, as he touched 16th in the NCAC in the 100 fly (52.83), 18th in the 100 free (48.22), and 22nd in the 50 free (22.02) this past February.

Not to be overlooked, juniors Jeremy Bervoets and Zach Boylston are solid contributors in the breast, senior Michael Saltzman possesses the potential to be the squad's leader in the sprint freestyles, and sophomore Kevin Audet has continued to show improvement in the distance freestyle.

In the diving well, Wooster welcomes back sophomore Luke Knezevic, who picked up all-conference status as a rookie via a third-place on the one-meter (415.45), and he'll be a contender for the championship on both boards this year.

Add in a seven-member freshmen class, headlined by the highly-touted Peter Parisi as well as Alex LaJoie, and Harrington thinks the Scots have all the makings for a run up the NCAC standings and more.

"I think it's fair for us to attain fourth and look to challenge for third. We always want to beat Wabash (College) and Wittenberg (University)," he summed up. "Obviously, we'd always love to get a berth to nationals. We're close."