Women's Swimming

Previous Entries • February 5, 2008 • January 8, 2008 • November 28, 2007 • November 8, 2007 • October 23, 2007 • October 10, 2007

Jan. 8, 2008

Happy New Year!! I apologize for the lag in entries, the combination of finals, training, and our team trip to Vegas got the better of me. It was a busy, but incredibly productive and rewarding holiday season for the Gaucho swim team.

The Vegas meet created lots of excitement on deck, especially amongst our women's swimmers as sophomore, Anne Marie May (junior class status), posted NCAA "A" cuts in the 50 and 100 freestyles. Her final performances helped to motivate the entire team as we headed for break. May wasn't the only stellar performer; many Gauchos posted best times and raced fast in season. The men's team as a whole competed well and won the meet, besting seven other teams. The women's team took second of nine.

The Gaucho men and women returned to Campus Pool on December 28th for an intense ten-day training camp. We held double workouts everyday of the camp, putting in the last bits of conditioning of the season as we head into a period of heavy competition. Both the men's and women's teams are sharpening their focus and making final preparations for the Big West Meet and the NCAAs. The men have begun a time honored tradition, "Beard Club," in which all team members must grow their facial hair until the first day of conference competition (I'm sure you can imagine their scraggily appearances). We will be growing our leg hair-not out of commiseration for the men-but so that we can benefit from the enhanced feel for the water that shaving down provides.

But before we can even think about conference, we have five dual meets to tackle. Our first challenge comes this weekend when we host Pac-10 powerhouse USC. This should be a particularly competitive meet and is a decades old rivalry. This weekend will be an excellent opportunity to prove we belong amongst the better teams in the country.