The offseason is often a more stressful time of the year than the regular season for college coaches. Hopping from town to town courting blue chippers can be taxing work.

Fortunately for University of Michigan women’s swimming coach Jim Richardson, long travel isn’t required to see some of the best swimmers in the state -- and sometimes the country -- with Pioneer High School right down the road.

Pioneer has won the team state championship nine of the past 10 years. Richardson said he doesn’t target or favor the program when recruiting, but when Michigan is interested in someone from the powerhouse program he knows exactly what he’s getting.

“I think that Denny and Liz (Hill) make it exciting and make it fun. They both have a tremendous sense of humor, they have their priorities straight with respect to what’s important and they don’t burden the kids with the kinds of things that cause you to burn out,” Richardson said. “The success of the program in and of itself makes it so each succeeding team doesn’t want to be the team that performs poorly, and that’s pressure. But I think that kind of pressure’s good.”

“It’s obviously an intense program. Just having (Hill) as a mentor, as a coach, it prepares you. That program definitely helped with the transition to the college atmosphere,” said Margaret Kelly, one of the eight former Pioneers currently on the Wolverines’ roster. Kelly, a senior captain, 5-time all-American and 11 time NCAA honorable mention - recently received Big Ten swimmer of the week honors. It was the third time Kelly had received the award in her career, and second so far this season.

“She’s having the best season of her life. In training and in meets, she’s a lot faster than last year in daily training and in swimming at this point,” Richardson said, adding that Kelly, who has taken first in six events at different meets so far this season, is probably the most complete swimmer he’s ever coached in his 25 years at Michigan.

“If we asked her to, she would swim the mile and probably do a good job of it. Whenever you have someone down, and they’re number one in their event, you can put Margaret in there and she’ll be right there,” he said. “She’s a great competitor, great practice swimmer and, most importantly I think, a really good leader.”

In the past, Kelly’s work ethic and versatility has actually been a deterrent, with fatigue sometimes getting the best of her toward the end of the season.

“It’s always been a hard thing finding that balance between pushing myself hard enough and pushing myself to hard,” said Kelly, who couldn’t compete at the Big Ten championships last year after sustaining an injury during training.

“I thinks she’s learned through the years there are times when she has to back down a little bit. She doesn’t have to win every single thing in practice,” Richardson said. “She’s a much, much smarter athlete than she was when she came to Michigan. Also, very quick to step forward and let us know when she’s feeling fatigued.

”Though her times suggest a few Big Ten and NCAA title are realistic goals, Kelly, Richardson said the focus is on self-improvement.

“We don’t have any control over how swimmers from Stanford, Texas, Indiana, Florida do. It doesn’t do us a lot of time worrying about what they’re going to do,” Richardson said. “Margaret has continued to improve and, rather than worrying about or setting goals about how you’re going to place, we spend time worrying about how fast we’re going to go.”

“We really have a team that’s excited to swim every day and hopefully we can keep improving our times,” Kelly said. “If that gives us a Big ten Championship, that’d be great.”

OTHER NOTES

• Lincoln grad Ryan Walton scored 11 points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Concordia University men’s basketball team during the Cardinals’ 81-66 loss to Cornerstone on Saturday.
  
• Huron grad Dan Thurston won the 100- and 200-meter freestyle races during the Dennison University men’s swimming team’s 172-118 win over Wittenberg on Friday.
  
• Pioneer grad Nick Cornicelli scored a goal, and Chelsea grad Michael Bazydlo had a goal and an assist for the Hope College hockey team in a 5-4 loss at Oakland University on Friday. Bazydlo had another goal in the second game of the home-and-home on Saturday, a 6-2 Hope victory.
  
• Father Gabriel Richard grad Nyemade Cooper had a double-double with a team-high 11 points and 10 rebounds as the Kalamazoo College women’s basketball team fell to Robert Morris on Saturday, 68-44. Pioneer grad Courtney Kaplan had five points in the contest.
  
• Chelsea grad Eric Cremer had an assist for the Nichols College hockey team in a 5-4 victory over Worcester College on Saturday.
  
• Pioneer grad Jason Hass won the 200 meter butterfly for the University of Miami (Oh) swimming team in a 150-150 tie against Cincinnati on Friday.
  
• Pioneer grads Leigh Cole and Margaret Kelly both swam on the University of Michigan’s first place 200-meter freestyle relay team in the Wolverines’ narrow 157.5-142.5 defeat of Northwestern on Saturday. Kelly also won the 200-yard individual medley, 200-yard butterfly and was second in the 200-yard freestyle by a mere 4 hundredths of a second.
  
• Huron grad Tyler Hardy scored 10 points and had three assists for the Wayne State women’s basketball team in a 79-55 loss to Lake Superior State on Saturday.
  

If you have information to share on other local athletes who have gone on to participate in college athletics, please send an e-mail to petercunningham@annarbor.com, or call 734-623-2561. Follow Pete Cunningham on Twitter @petcunningham.