Brown University Women's Swimming

Kovenock enters her third season as the head coach of the women's swimming & diving team at Brown in 2016-17. In her two years at Brown, Kovenock has guided three student-athletes to individual Ivy League titles, four student-athletes to CSCAA Honorable Mention All-American honors and the program to back-to-back CSCAA Scholar All-American team accolades. In the 2015-16 Ivy League Championships, Kovenock led the program to its highest team finish in a decade.   Prior to Brown, Kovenock spent five seasons at the University of Notre Dame as an assistant coach of the womens swimming and diving team.  At Notre Dame, Kovenock helped guide the Irish to their best showing at the NCAA Championships, a 16th place finish in 2013-14 after the University transitioned from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference.  The program also engineered its first National Champion and American record holder with Emma Reaneys performance in the 200 SCY Breaststroke.  Her main responsibilities included recruiting, scheduling, budget management, and the planning of training trips and competitions.  Alongside head coach Brian Barnes, she was also instrumental in the design and implementation of training cycles and daily workouts.  Notre Dames academic success thrived under Kovenock as the team and multiple individuals garnered CSCAA Scholar All-American status in all five seasons. Prior to her tenure with the Irish, Kovenock served as an assistant coach of the men and womens swimming teams at Kenyon College under Jim Steen from 2005-09.  In her four seasons at Kenyon, Kovenock helped guide the mens team to four consecutive NCAA titles and the womens program to three straight NCAA titles from 2007-09. As a student-athlete at Connecticut College, Kovenock was an 11-time All-American and two-time team captain at Connecticut College from 2001-05.  She was the Camels first NCAA Swimming Champion, claiming the crown in the 50 Yard Freestyle at the 2004 Division III NCAA Championships.  Kovenock also boasted numerous academic accolades as a student-athlete, twice claiming CoSIDA Academic All-American honors and earning CSCAA Scholar All-America Team selections in all four years.

Speroni 11 enters his third season as the women's swimming & diving assistant coach in 2016-17.  In his two years as an assistant coach at Brown, Speroni has guided three student-athletes to individual Ivy League titles, four student-athletes to CSCAA Honorable Mention All-American honors and the program to back-to-back CSCAA Scholar All-American team accolades. In 2015-16, the program had its highest team finish at the Ivy League Championship in a decade. A native of Sandwich, Massachusetts, Speroni was a two-time captain of the Brown mens swimming and diving team as a junior and senior, earning the Mens Swimming and Diving Service & Leadership Award in those two seasons.  He is a Brown all-time top-25 finisher in the 1,000 Freestyle, 1,650 Freestyle, and 400 IM events and also served as President of the Brown Student-Athlete Advisory Council from 2009-11.

Pyrch enters his second season as the men's and women's diving coach in 2016-17.  In his first year at College Hill, Pyrch guided a men's diver to NCAA Zone Diving Championships, where the student-athlete placed 22nd in the 1-meter and 32nd in the 3-meter. Pyrch joined the Bears after spending seven seasons at the University of North Texas as the Mean Green's diving coach.  Under Pyrch's tutelage, North Texas boasted four conference finalists scoring over 100 points, three NCAA Zone Diving qualifiers, and a Scholar-Athlete of the Year selection. The Mean Green has held the top-10 program scores and has received 16 Conference USA Diver of the Week selections in Pyrch's seven seasons in Denton. Pyrch also coached North Texas' most successful diver, Catherine Johnson, who claimed three silver and two bronze medals in a three-year span at the Conference USA Championships. Prior to North Texas, Pyrch boasted a tenure with Yale as the Bulldogs' diving coach, where he coached two NCAA qualifiers in 2002, as well as a trio of Ivy League champion divers in consecutive seasons from 2001-03. On the national stage, Pyrch was also a six-time U.S. National Diving Coach, participating in competitions with the squad in Germany, China, Russia, and Sweden. Pyrch also held coaching stints at Macalester College and his alma mater, Southern Connecticut State, where he was a two-time Division II Diving Coach of the Year (1987, 1993).