A new school year means new places and new beginnings, for Jaedon Lynch, Lise Puissant and Gergely Torok. Quincy wasn’t always in the plans.

Three swimmers were forced to leave their former school when the program suddenly got cut in late April of 2024.

The students attended Union Commonwealth University in Barbourville, Kentucky, an NAIA school.

The university cut the program after selling its pool to the city for a different school system to use full time.

The elimination of the program came as a shock to the trio, as they were left to find a new school to compete for with a few weeks left in the semester.

The collegiate swim season ends in late March and that’s when everyone hits the transfer portal and decides on where they want to attend school in the upcoming fall. Entering the portal in late April is way behind schedule for transferring.

“I would say it’s pretty unfortunate that they cut both of the best teams in the school and it’s pretty unfair that they only told us in April to make it a bit stressful one last month for us,” Torok said.

The team had a very successful 2024-25 season where they finished 10th on the men’s side and 9th on the women’s side at the NAIA national championships. 

Lynch is one of the new faces on campus here and he says he loves it here.

“I like Quincy way better than my old school because Quincy is so much bigger than my old school. Quincy has actual things around the campus. My old school was in the middle of nowhere and they cut our team so now we’re living life,” Lynch said.

With the Hawks first meet coming up against Truman these three look to dive right in and make a splash.