Heading into the National Invitational Championships (NIC) inside the Robert F. Busbey Natatorium in Downtown Cleveland last spring, the Cleveland State swimming and diving team was looking to prove itself on a national level. Under first-year head coach Hannah Burandt, the men had continued their recent string of success, while the women’s program established itself as a legitimate contender in the Horizon League.
The men had lived up to the expectations of the preseason coaches poll, securing a second-place finish in the conference. Timothy Kubacki recorded a new school record in the 200 backstrokein the Horizon League meet, only for teammate Dominik Niedzialek to set a new mark shortly thereafter.
Not to be outdone, the Lady Vikes finished as runners-up in the Horizon for the first time since 2013 despite being penned as a fourth-place team ahead of the season, recording their highest point total at the conference championship in seven years after falling in all 10 of their dual meets during the regular season.
The NIC represented a unique opportunity for the Vikings, namely their seniors, to compete against nearly 50 other schools at a national tournament within their home facility. It marked the first national postseason event hosted inside the friendly confines of Cleveland State’s campus since the school welcomed in top collegiate swimmers from all over the country at the 1975, 1977 and 1979 NCAA Division I Championships.
It all came to a sudden halt on Thursday, March 12, when the Horizon League announced the suspension of all league-sponsored sports effective immediately. As a result, the final two days of competition were canceled with the men’s team ranking sixth of 49 squads, while the women sat just outside the top 30.
“It’s like going from 1000 miles per hour to a dead stop,” Burandt explained. “You’re on top of the world and then it just all comes crashing down. It was really hard for our seniors last year. There was no way to get closure and wrap up the phenomenal season they had just experienced.”
Suddenly, the Vikings were sent home, ending the careers of several seniors and thrusting the program into an unconventional offseason characterized by uncertainty and filled with obstacles at every turn.
AN OFFSEASON LIKE NO OTHER
As the world navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vikings turned to alternate methods of offseason programming, conducting team building activities over Zoom while training in any possible fashion. Several student-athletes were confined to their homes and many had no access to pools for months at a time. Some were under such strict curfews and lockdowns that training of any kind was made extremely difficult.
“Some people had access to training over the summer, but others had zero access,” Burandt said. “All they could do was run or ride their bike. Having different resources available to different athletes was very challenging.”
Even when the Vikings returned to Northeast Ohio in early September, nothing was the same. Due to renovations inside their usual facilities, the team was limited to training sessions at community pools for nearly two full months before being able to practice in its own pool. Because of maintenance issues stemming from the recent upgrades, the pool was shut down once again shortly after the Vikings’ return.
Through it all, the team trained exclusively in pods based both on roommates and transportation situations to and from the Brooklyn Recreation Center, where the majority of in-water training took place. Burandt and her staff strategically formed four different pods to maximize practice time while limiting the potential spread of COVID.
The pod approach proved effective on multiple occasions. For instance, the “pink” pod was quarantined four separate times due to COVID-related complications, totaling 20 days of quarantine from September through November. The “blue” pod, which was assigned to travel with the coaching staff, was at one point shut down as a result of two positive cases. The system allowed members of the group to immediately enter quarantine to halt the spread, resulting in no additional cases among the team.
An unintended effect of dividing the team into groups was more personalized training sessions for student-athletes.
“Everybody is built different and needs different things,” Burandt explained. “To be able to individualize within this program is a testament to our coaching staff and what we’ve been able to do. To get our athletes to trust the process when absolutely nothing has been normal has been amazing.”
In total, student-athletes have spent a combined 893 days in quarantine for various reasons since returning to campus in September, including 11 individuals who have been isolated for a total period of at least one month.
A typical preseason training program would see swimmers in the pool, on average, around 20 hours per week. Instead, owing to limited pool availability, student-athletes were only afforded a pair of three-hour sessions per week based on available timeslots. Needless to say, the Viking swimmers took nothing for granted during those coveted practices.
“It was a really rough fall for everybody,” Burandt said. “We were the only winter sport that let our kids go home at Christmas, which was very important for their mental health. There was so much instability and no continuity, and I think that a lot of them needed to go home.”
Vikings swimmers were grateful for the program's decision, taking advantage of over a month back home with their families.
“Since I was in Cleveland for the majority of the shutdown, it was the first time I was able to see my family in almost a year. It really meant everything to be with them during the time that I had.” -Sophomore Abbie Ramey
With the pandemic still in full swing, several student-athletes once again had no access to training facilities, resulting in over a month off in the middle of preparing for the upcoming season.
“In swimming, they say whatever amount of time you take off, it takes double that to get back in shape,” Burandt said. “For some of these kids, they basically started fresh on January 18 when we returned.”
Burandt and her staff worked with the Cleveland State Recreation Center to coordinate private spinning and yoga classes for the team in January, helping ease swimmers back into shape after some were forced into yet another month off during winter break.
Normally, swimmers train approximately 20 hours per week over the course of five months, meaning 480 odd hours of hard work and conditioning prior to competition. The Vikings could only train for less than 10 hours a week over the course of two months, giving some swimmers only a quarter of the practice time they’d see in a typical year.
Furthermore, divers were restricted to exclusively dryland training until finding a suitable training pool at the Westlake Recreation Center in the middle of October. Even then, the group could practice only six hours per week based on the facility’s busy schedule.
The numbers paint a clear picture: The Vikings faced an extremely tall task preparing for the onset of their shortened season, which was set to kick off in mid-February.
TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED
On February 11, the Vikings’ hard work was rewarded. The team was able to compete for the first time in nearly a full calendar year, with the men’s and women’s sides claiming blowout wins over Notre Dame (Ohio) in a dual meet.
Collectively, the Vikings won all but one race in which they entered, including a sweep of the day for the men.
"It was a really good meet," Burandt said following the action. "It was so much fun to shake off the rust and race. There's a difference between swimming and racing. Our team has done a great job at swimming, but after all this adversity and everything we've been through, it was great to see them get out and race."
Being grateful for the opportunity to compete has been a consistent theme of the Vikings’ season and is a key aspect of the culture instilled by the coaching staff and embraced by student-athletes.
“There’s things in life that you have to do – you have to sleep, you have to eat, but swimming and diving is not a ‘have to’,” Burandt said. “It’s something we get to do. If we take care of what we ‘have to’ do and take care of each other as people first and students second, then our sport becomes a ‘get to.’”
The “have to” and “get to” philosophy has applied to this season more than any other as the Vikings have been thankful for each and every opportunity to compete.
OVERCOMING ADVERSITY
Despite being limited to only three meets this year for the men and four for the women, the Vikings haven’t been deterred from success on both individual and team levels.
In their first Horizon League meet against perennial contender Oakland, the Viking men were severely shorthanded, with five returning juniors and seniors in quarantine. Only two men who had suited up for Cleveland State in years past competed: senior Dominik Niedzlialek and junior Bob Lenart. The remainder of the squad was made up of freshmen or transfers as the Vikings battled the Horizon League’s top program on the road.
“We were standing there like, ‘We’re swimming our biggest rival and our team doesn’t know the traditional team cheers,’” Burandt said. “Watching our underclassmen and transfers step up was amazing.”
While the men’s team has built up the depth necessary to overcome such losses, the women’s side is, in Burandt’s words, “small but mighty”, featuring 19 members, including only two divers. At one meet this season, the women were only able to bring 10 swimmers to compete while being forced to leave their divers at home.
“I tell the kids all the time, adversity doesn’t bring out the best or the worst in you,” Burandt said. “It just brings out who you are. It’s really brought out how amazing our kids and our coaching staff really are.”
For most of the season, the Vikings operated out of the smaller pool on campus while the larger pool underwent maintenance and upgrades. This made in-water training for divers nearly impossible until the pool was finally ready for use only days ahead of the lone home meet of the season.
“We just did dryland training from the time we got back to school in mid-January,” said longtime Cleveland State diving coach Rich Karban. “We’ve been doing some things, but obviously it’s different. You’re not going into the water, you’re not going headfirst and you’re not practicing your entries. Once we finally got in the water, we were in for three days and then had a meet, which is very difficult.”
The Viking divers were able to compete for the first time on Senior Day against UIC. Despite only diving off platforms twice in the hours leading up to the event, Matthew Akers scored a pair of second-place finishes in the 1-meter and 3-meter dives, while Erica Henrichsen notched a top-three finish in the 3-meter dive.
The Viking divers were able to compete for the first time on Senior Day against UIC. Despite only diving off platforms twice in the hours leading up to the event, Matthew Akers scored a pair of second-place finishes in the 1-meter and 3-meter dives, while Erica Henrichsen notched a top-three finish in the 3-meter dive.
WINNING THE CULTURE
Since Burandt was hired in June 2019, her primary message has been clear: one team, one family. While most other Division I sports are completely separate entities between the men’s and women’s programs, Burandt fosters a culture of unity as the leader of both teams at Cleveland State.
“We’re one team, one family across the men’s and women’s programs; one team, one family between swimmers and divers; and one team, one family across different specialties,” said Burandt.
One of Burandt’s priorities upon taking over as head coach was setting up individual meetings with each member of the team to learn their unique personalities and develop a connection with every student-athlete.
“It’s really important to have that family feel,” Burandt said, “To have that connection with every athlete knowing every staff member and vice versa, is important. Our entire coaching staff coaches every single athlete.”
“Last year, our goal was to win our team culture before we walked into the conference meet, because then, no matter the results, we were already winners.” - Head Coach Hannah Burandt
Burandt grades her team on culture at every practice and every meet based on their support for their teammates and ability to lift one another up.
“They didn’t get an ‘A’ on culture until our very last away meet last year at Oakland,” Burandt explained. “Team culture is not tangible and not a trophy that you can hold. You have to constantly feed, nourish and work on building it.”
The odd nature of this season has only strengthened the team-first culture and made the Vikings more grateful for each and every opportunity to compete together.
“We’ve seen a huge shift with our kids being able to not take anything for granted,” Burandt said. “A practice could be good or bad, but the just the fact that they got to practice is huge. There were times that we didn’t have access to a pool or access to training.”
While the culture itself may not be concrete or visible to the naked eye, the Vikings have demonstrated it through their actions. Ahead of the women’s road meet at Buffalo on March 27, the men’s team woke up early to show their support prior to the bus departing, supporting their female counterparts with painted chests and cheers as the bus departed for New York.
“One team, one family is who we are and what we live by,” Burandt said. “A lot of people say they’re a family, but I’ve never seen a group like this. From our current team to our alumni and our incoming committed class, they’re bonding in ways I’ve never seen before.”
The odd nature of this season has only strengthened the team-first culture and made the Vikings more grateful for each and every opportunity to compete together.
“We’ve seen a huge shift with our kids being able to not take anything for granted,” Burandt said. “A practice could be good or bad, but the just the fact that they got to practice is huge. There were times that we didn’t have access to a pool or access to training.”
The Vikings’ coaches strive to serve their team in a distinct order: as people, as students, then as athletes. That strategy has paid dividends in more ways than one as the team saw tremendous success in the classroom last fall.
Both the men’s and women’s programs posted team GPAs above 3.5. Individually, the men saw 20 athletes qualify for the Dean’s List, while three swimmers earned perfect 4.0s on the semester and one posted a sparkling 3.94. Eleven of 19 women on the roster made the Dean’s List, including an astounding six 4.0 GPAs.
Last spring, senior Timothy Kubacki became the third consecutive Viking swimmer to win the Horizon League Scholar Athlete honor for the 2019-20 winter season. The award is based on both academic excellence and competitive success and is given each year to a male and female student-athlete from the sports of basketball, swimming and diving, and indoor track and field.
High academic expectations are an integral component of Cleveland State’s culture. The amazing successes the program has seen in the classroom are arguably the defining trait of this year’s squad
A LOOK AHEAD
The Horizon League Swimming and Diving Championships will take place April 5-10 inside the IUPUI Natatorium on the campus of IUPUI in Indianapolis.
No matter what happens at the conference meet, the Vikings will prioritize bringing their culture and identity.
“For us, the big goal is continuing to win our culture,” said Burandt. “We want to continue to support one another. If somebody’s high and doing well, we keep them up there. If somebody’s low, you pick them up and keep going. It’s more about the process for us. If we have fun, support one another and lift each other up, that’s a success.”
Due to injuries, the women will likely be limited to 14 swimmers and two divers at the meet, providing yet another obstacle for the group to conquer.
“What our women have been able to overcome takes grit, heart, guts and courage,” said Burandt. “Our women have been absolutely amazing.”
Embracing the “one team, one family” mantra, the Vikings head into this week’s festivities looking to thrive on the big stage, but, above all else, remain thankful for the opportunity to compete together.
“I think we can do some special things, but there’s really no pressure,” Burandt explained. “It’s just going to be fun. We want to be loudest team on deck and have fun. If we do those two things, we’ll be successful.