Jason Green
Gershwin Greene
Peter Lochmaier
Samantha Suer Baylor School honored four senior swimmers Wednesday night who are bound for NCAA Division I programs. The paperwork already had been handled, but there still was the matter of congratulations and cake for Jason Green, Gershwin Greene, Peter Lochmaier and Samantha Suer.
Lochmaier is a Signal Mountain resident and seventh-year Baylor student headed to the Air Force Academy in Colorado, where his sister, Emma, already is enrolled. The other three came from elsewhere but aren't going quite as far away.
Green is in his third year at Baylor from Asheville, N.C., although he is a day student now. Strong in the individual medley, he signed a letter of intent to St. Bonaventure in western New York.
Suer, a second-year Baylor butterfly competitor, is from New York but is going to Kentucky, while Greene, a freestyle sprinter from the Bahamas, will be swimming for Virginia Tech.
"This is a very talented group that's really developed well since they came to Baylor," Baylor coach Dan Flack said. "They will be huge assets for the programs they're going to be part of."
Suer said she also considered Georgia Tech, Arizona State and Southern Methodist but stuck with Kentucky, where she made her first visit in September.
"I knew when I visited that's where I wanted to spend the next four years," she said. "And I think I'll be able to help them next year."
Greene, who represented the Bahamas in the Junior Pan Pacific Championships this year, also talked to South Carolina, Purdue, Penn State and Cincinnati.
"Out of all the places I looked at, Virginia Tech was the most friendly to me," he said, noting that he really likes the Hokies swimmers and their coaches.
Green also looked at Denison, New York University and Emory, among others, but St. Bonaventure seemed to be the best place for the balance he wants between swimming and a double major of computer science and cyber security.
"And I really wanted to swim at the Division I level," he noted.
He said the breaststroke is probably his best of the four strokes in the medley, "but I'm pretty well rounded. I'm competitive in the backstroke, the fly in the free, so whatever they need I can do."
Lochmaier also checked into the Naval Academy and Virginia Tech but was leaning to the Falcons all along.
"I want to serve as part of something larger than myself, and the Air Force Academy in particular and the way they conduct themselves there seems true to their motto," he said.
That is "integrity first, service before self, excellence in all we do," he quoted.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.