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University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Spotlight on UNC Asheville Swimming & Diving
11.17.2021 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Entering its 10th season in 2021-22, the UNC Asheville swimming & diving team had high expectations after tallying several podium finishes at last February’s Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) Championships on its way to matching the best finish at the Championships in program history (4th). That being said, not many people expected Asheville to reach the mid-point of this season with its best start in the program’s relatively short history posting a 6-0 record in dual meets.
Asheville has defeated ECU (174-124), Gardner-Webb (189-73), Bellarmine (201-60), Campbell (152-109), UNC Wilmington (151-148), and Georgia Southern (151-92) en route to its undefeated start. The victories over Campbell and UNC Wilmington marked Asheville’s first wins over those respective programs in team history. Furthermore, Asheville has had a couple of weekly honors from the CCSA, along with a few school and freshman records broken during this stellar streak.
Leading the charge for the Bulldogs has been four-time CCSA Coach of the Year Head Coach Elizabeth Lykins. Lykins has been there since the start of the Bulldog swimming & diving program as she was hired back on February 1, 2012. Over the years, Lykins has helped the Bulldogs achieve success in the pool and the classroom. Among the accomplishments are several podium finishes at the CCSA Championships, multiple conference weekly awards, consistently rewriting the program’s record book, and the program earning CSCAA Scholar All-American Team status in every semester during its existence.
“When we started the program 10 years ago, we were talking more in terms of six people-and-0,” said Lykins reminiscing of the growth of her program. “If we had six people healthy for the meet out of the eight people we had on the team, that was a big deal for us. So to have a full squad now and have a fall season like we’ve had, I couldn’t be more excited.”
The full squad that Coach Lykins mentioned boasts several talented swimmers and divers that have accomplished a great deal during their time in Asheville. One of these talented student-athletes is junior Delaney Carlton.
Carlton, who hails from Lilburn, Georgia, currently holds the school record in the 50-yard freestyle (22.93) and has routinely won multiple individual events for the Bulldogs this fall. Furthermore, Carlton has also been a member of some of the most successful relay teams in Asheville’s history. She has been a part of school record-breaking times in the 200-yard freestyle and 400-yard freestyle, 200-yard medley, 400-yard medley relays.
“Every meet, we go in with the mindset that success isn’t a given,” Carlton said of her team’s approach. “The goal is to have an Asheville hand on the wall first. Every week that’s been the goal, and that’s what we’ve been doing. I’m really proud of the team, and all the work we’re putting in is paying off.”
In addition to the performances of Carlton and the rest of the Bulldog swimmers, Asheville has gotten an added boost from its divers as well. The Bulldogs added diving ahead of the 2018-19 academic year and has seen steady growth since then. Sophomore Jade Canady and freshman Morgan Coughlen have been two of those divers that have helped lay the groundwork for the program. Canady became the first Bulldog diver to earn the CCSA Diver of the Week award earlier this year and entered the 2021-22 season, owning the school and freshman records in both 1-meter and 3-meter diving.
Way to go Bulldogs -- Asheville's Delaney Carlton & Jade Canady swept the CCSA honors for Women's Swimmer & Diver of the Week! @UNCAvlSwimDive https://t.co/WPptFqayMP pic.twitter.com/8YZkZn6vSy
— CCSA Swimming & Diving (@CCSA_Swim_Dive) October 5, 2021
“It feels great,” Canady said of the program’s 6-0 start. “We’ve been really celebrating it every time we win with a lot of screaming and cheering, which has been awesome.”
Coughlen, meanwhile, has made an immediate impact for the Bulldogs. The Frisco, Texas native has broken both the 1-meter and 3-meter school and freshman records that Canady held previously in consecutive meets.
“I think it’s cool to be in a program at the start of it,” Coughlen said. “Hopefully, with the new divers we bring in, the program will keep getting better and better,” said Coughlen. “We can look back and say we were the few that were there from the beginning.”
The Bulldogs will finish their competition schedule for the semester this weekend. The diving team will compete at Liberty, while the swimmers will take part in the annual Fall Frenzy Invitational hosted by the Queens University of Charlotte.
“I think as a team, we do an outstanding job of staying focused on our goals,” Carlton added in closing. “These meets are milestones along the way, but our main goal is to be successful at the CCSA Championships.”