University swim programs pursuing pair of Barracudas

The options are piling up for Hannah Esopenko and Avery Movold. Within the next year, they will have to make decisions.

The United States or Canada? Elite swimming program or highly-rated academic program? Of course, a school that ticks both boxes would be ideal.

Right now though, the two 16-year-olds from the Prince George Barracudas are considering offers and opportunities. In their age group, they are among the top swimmers in the nation and, because of their prowess in the pool, are attracting a ton of interest from post-secondary institutions across North America. At the upper end of the scale, full-ride scholarships are possibilities.

For Esopenko and Movold, the excitement started on Sept. 1 - roughly the beginning of their Grade 11 school years. At that point in time, university swim coaches were allowed to start contacting them via email in efforts to recruit them for their teams.

Esopenko, a student at College Heights secondary, estimates more than 50 messages have found their way to her inbox.

"It's a really good feeling to be recognized and have coaches watching you throughout your swimming season," said Esopenko, now in her 10th year with the Barracudas. "(It's nice) to have them want you to be on their team because they think you'll be beneficial and help them out with rankings and scoring and stuff. That's really awesome."

For Esopenko, landing a swimming scholarship has been a goal since her early years in the local club. She'd see older swimmers like Katie Mann and Haley Black working their way toward scholastic/athletic offers and knew she wanted the same for herself. Mann ended up accepting a full-ride scholarship at the University of New Hampshire and later swam for the University of Alberta, while Black is currently enjoying a record-setting season at Auburn University in Alabama.

Esopenko has been contacted by multiple NCAA Division 1 schools, including the University of Georgia, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., the University of Denver and institutions in Florida and Texas. Right now, she said she's leaning toward going to the U.S. but if she were to stay in Canada, her choice would be Vancouver's UBC, which has the best swimming program in the country and would fill her academic requirements as well.

"It just depends on what major I want to take," Esopenko said. "Right now I'm kind of thinking about pharmacy or engineering and if I was to do that I'd probably stay in Canada because it would be easier to get my degrees over with. But, if I go for a bachelor of science I'd probably go down to the States and do the four years down there."

Today, Esopenko and Movold will start competition at the Team Canada Trials in Victoria. Another individual expected to be around the pool is Texas A&M women's team coach Steve Bultman. Texas A&M is one of the schools that reached out to Movold via email, and, given the fact it's one of the major players in Division 1 of the NCAA, Movold would love to go there. She has also received emails from swim coaches at Louisiana State University, Harvard and Stanford, among others.

"It's such an exciting time for me - I'm so excited about college swimming," said Movold, a PGSS student who moved to Prince George from Prince Rupert and is in her second season with the Barracudas. "Just talking to them and getting to know them and what their programs are all about is so cool, because I could go there. It's going to be such a great experience for me to grow as a swimmer, and especially school-wise."

In the classroom, Movold is considering law or kinesiology.

So just how good are Esopenko and Movold when they're in the water? In the age-group national rankings for short-course swimming (25-metre pool), Esopenko is fifth in the 200m and 400m individual medley races, sixth in the 200m butterfly and seventh in the 200m breaststroke. As for Movold, she ranks third in the 800m freestyle, 1,500m freestyle and 100m individual medley, fourth in the 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle and fifth in the 200m freestyle. Along with her work ethic and talent, Movold stands six-foot-one, which is advantageous in the pool.

For the two teens, the Team Canada Trials are the start of the long-course (50m pool) season. Local coach Jerzy Partyka said with successful long-course campaigns, Esopenko and Movold should be able to choose their post-secondary destinations. When they move on to that level, they'll join a long list of Barracudas who have accomplished the feat. Along with Mann and Black, Barracudas swimmers who earned scholarships under the guidance of Partyka and fellow coach Jason Smith include: Andrew Sweet, Marcin Partyka, Brian Yakiwchuk and Josiah Binnema (University of Alberta); Sterling King, Danica Ludlow and Patricia Fortier (University of Calgary); Kit Moran and James Burg (Dalhousie University); and Selena Light (University of Victoria).