Kansas faces Arkansas in last regular-season road test
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas swimming and diving team travels to Fayetteville, Arkansas to face the Razorbacks at 10 a.m., Saturday, February 2, inside the UREC Natatorium.
Both teams go enter the dual with conference meets in mind as the Jayhawks’ prepare for their last road meet against a competitive Arkansas team before the Big 12 Championship (Feb. 27 – March 2).
Head coach Clark Campbell sees this meet as a great opportunity for the team to get acclimated to a travel setting, just weeks before the conference meet.
“You get the experience of the road trip,” Campbell said. “You have a little disruption to your normal schedule with how things go. But that is good because when we go to (the) Big 12 (Championships) it is the same deal, we will be out of our element. It is good to get on the road about a month out and get used to taking care of ourselves on the road and still preform.”
Arkansas has always been a strong opponent for Kansas giving both teams a competitive edge heading into this dual so late in the season.
“They are strong and have been competing quite a bit,” Campbell said. “The SEC Championship is a week earlier than the Big 12 Championship, so they are a little bit further down the road in preparation. We will go down there and compete against the toughest opponent we have faced yet and our goal is to continue what we did last year and that is just be more competitive.”
The Jayhawks have a solid set of goals going into this dual with Arkansas with the conference meet right around the corner. It makes for the perfect opportunity for each student-athlete to showcase where their preparation is at this point in the season.
“We are not specifically preparing for Arkansas,” Campbell said “We know that the racing we do will be a critical piece of the puzzle that we are putting together for the Big 12 Championship. We want to go in there and compete against a really good team that has good people. It will be the toughest opponent we have faced so far, and we want to continue what we did last year of simply competing with them.”
Kansas has an action-packed week ahead as they will be hosting Iowa State the following weekend (Feb. 8-9), making it an intense training time. It is crucial that the team stays focused in every way.
“We are still preparing everything launched towards the Big 12 Championship,” Campbell said. “But in the next eight days we have three days of competition. So we are going to use this to really fine-tune what we need to do to get ready. Whether it is on the physical side with how we execute races, how we warm up, how we cool down, that type of thing. But also the mental side of it too. How we are approaching each competitive event, how we are talking to ourselves. So this is a part of a much bigger picture of the things that we need to do now to be ready at the end of the month for the Big 12 Championship.”
Campbell is excited to see how the team will excel in both of the swimming pool and diving well this Saturday, hoping to keep that same energy and competitive flare that the team had last year against Arkansas, and hold it throughout the duration of the season.
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