Jayhawks travel to Nebraska for first road meet
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas swimming and diving team take on its first travel meet of the season as it takes its talents to Lincoln, Nebraska for the annual dual against the Cornhuskers Saturday, Nov. 3 inside Bob Devaney Sports Center at 2 p.m.
The Jayhawks have had a fast start to the season with three wins under their wings thus far. They hope to carry on that momentum into their rivalry meet with the Cornhuskers, knowing that it will be a fight.
“We definitely want to continue the momentum but it will be in a very different environment because all of our meets have been at home,” head coach Clark Campbell said. “We have been able to use our facility to our advantage as they have gotten comfortable with it. This part of the year we are still forming a team. I think traveling and being in a different environment is that next step to forming that process.”
It is the tail end of the intense training sessions that the team has had over the past month. Traveling will give them just enough of a change to see how the team will handle this challenge on top of their training schedule.
“This five-week hard training phase is very difficult and they are starting to run out of gas,” Campbell said. “But they have been doing a really good job and the meets are an opportunity for them to be able to see where they are in the middle of this cycle.”
A challenging curve ball will be thrown at the team with the plan of action to begin racing just after a full morning travel. Coming out of a successful past couple of meets, it is important to keep the squad on its toes and always prepared for the next challenge.
Some of the swimmers and divers have the collegiate travel meet routine down, but for others this is a unique experience to face. This dual will be part of coming up with the team’s overall dynamic and set the tone for travel meets to follow.
“They all want to change, they all want to obtain goals and if you never challenge yourself you never change,” Campbell said. “It is part of our overall philosophy to make sure are athletes are challenged along the preparation course of the season so they become stronger, faster, and tougher. Some people are going to have no effects and they are going to race and do awesome, some people may stumble a little bit, but you know it is going to be different for everybody.”
The full squad will be riding up to Lincoln and have a scoring opportunity at hand. Having the correct mind-set riding into this meet will be vital to the team when it comes down to racing to be the best.
“This weekend will be a good opportunity to race with a team that is very motivated when they swim against us,” Campbell said. “This is a big rivalry and we go way back. I am excited that we can still continue it and it should be a really good day of racing.”
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