Wheeling, W. Va. - As the program has begun its climb back to the top of the swimming world, the Wheeling University Men's Swimming team would establish a winning culture during the 2024-2025 season. The team broke the single-season dual meet win record, going 9-5, and added their first-ever Mountain East Conference (MEC) Individual Conference Champion. While their roster continues to grow, with 21 swimmers set to take the pool, the goal of continuing to establish that winning culture stays alive and well in the fabric of the program.
During the 2024-2025 season, the Cardinals started their season at the West Virginia University games, and would pick up their first MEC win in their next event against West Virginia Wesleyan. They would go on to win their next six dual meets, and eight out of their last 10, and headed into the midseason invitational sitting at 8-2. They would end up taking 6th out of the 16 teams in the field at the midseason meet, and kicked off the second half with a dual meet against Lenoir-Rhyne, where they fell 136-47. Despite dropping meets to Fairmont State and Penn State Behrend, the Cardinals would end up breaking the program's dual meet win record against Alfred State on February 1st. They moved on to the MEC/Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) Swimming & Diving Championships, and finished 5th overall and 3rd among their MEC opponents.
The Cardinals would earn five All-MEC honors at last year's event, including their first-ever MEC Individual title, and despite that champion graduating, the Cardinals welcome back several strong leaders to take the reins this season. Leading the way this season will be senior Patrick Kirby, who has been a quiet leader for the Cardinals over the past three seasons. He was a part of two of the five All-MEC honors for the team last season, both of those coming in the relay events. He would serve as the third leg of the 200-Yard Freestyle Relay team that took Second Team All-MEC honors with a time of 1:27.05. He would come back on the third day of competition and joined the 400-Yard Freestyle team that would take home Honorable Mention All-MEC honors with a time of 3:13.59.
A pair of sophomores who look to take their leadership to the next level for the Cardinals are Evan Yost and Sarp Killic, who each played big roles for the Cardinals a season ago. While he didn't win an All-MEC honor at last year's event, Killic was a regular in the long-distance swims for the Cardinals. He was a part of three of the four Cardinal relay title, swimming in the 400-Freestyle, 200-Freestyle, and the 800-Freestyle All-MEC winning relay teams. Yost was swimming in the short distance events for the Cardinals, but joined Killic on both the 800 and 400 Yard Freestyle teams a season ago. Yost finished as the Cardinal's top backstroker from a season ago and will look to continue leading that group in 2025-2026.
Stepping in to lead the Cardinals during the 2025-2026 season is Wheeling University Head Swimming Coach Will Hughes. Hughes has spent the last eight seasons in the collegiate coaching field, spending his most recent stint with Emory & Henry College. In his two seasons with the Wasps, he helped build both the men's and women's programs to new heights and looks for similar success with the Cardinal swim teams. He brings with him a lot of young talent, with 12 of his 21 swimmers being in either their freshman or sophomore seasons. He looks to help the Cardinals continue to grow on the conference ladder as they try and build towards the program's first-ever MEC team Championship.
As they enter the 2025-2026 season, the Cardinals will once again be starting off their year at the WVU Games. They then head into back-to-back tri meets against Frostburg State and West Virginia Wesleyan on October 11th and Bethany College and Chatham University at home on October 25th. They will be the only two tri meets of the year for the team before they finish out the first half in dual meet action. They will head to the Malone Midseason invitational on November 20th before kicking the second half of their season off once again at Lenoir-Rhyne. Then, it is a three meet sprint to the finish line, with Bethany and Fairmont State on back-to-back days before they round out the regular season schedule at home against Bethany on January 24th.
The Wheeling University Men's Swimming team starts the 2025-2026 season on Saturday, October 4th, when they head to the WVU Games with first swims beginning at 10 AM.
