Kansas Travels to Iowa State for Final Regular-Season Meet
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas swimming and diving team heads to Ames, Iowa to take on conference foe, Iowa State, in one final regular-season dual meet before the Big 12 Championships.
Kansas, 7-4 in dual meets this season, face the Cyclones for the second time this year on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7-8. The Jayhawks dominated ISU earlier this season when the two squared up at the Kansas Classic in November. As the season progresses, times decrease and head coach Clark Campbell expects his team to continue that trend for this weekend.
“We expect to swim faster times than we did last week,” Campbell said. “Continually getting faster is what we have been shooting for this whole dual-meet season. The meet is also against a Big 12 team, so we want to go up there and perform well. Once we come back home we will get to work on the peaking phase for the conference championships.”
According to Campbell, Iowa State is a strong dual meet team and has the ability to win races. The last time the Jayhawks saw the Cyclones in Ames, ISU won by a slim margin, 152-148.
“They are a much different dual meet team than they are a championship-style team,” Campbell said. “Dual meet wise, they have two very talented divers. They also have strong athletes in each individual event, which is key in dual meets. Whereas championship meets are driven by depth. KU is built with a lot of depth, but Iowa State has people that can win individual events.”
The meet is schedule to last two days in an effort for both teams to practice swimming at the times of prelims and finals for the conference championships. Friday’s portion of the competition will begin at 6 p.m. and will contain the first eight events of the meet. The back half of the meet will then be on Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. The goal for the Jayhawks according to Campbell is to swim well on Friday night and after a quick turnaround, perform at a high level Saturday morning.
A large winter weather storm hit Kansas earlier in the week, which made for the need to make adjustments in the practice schedule. However, the Jayhawks only missed one workout and are still ready to go this weekend.
“We prepared for the weather once the forecast came out,” Campbell said. “We had morning practice on Tuesday instead of going in the evening. We did miss our Wednesday morning workout, but had regular practice that night and will continue our regular schedule the rest of the week. In the grand scheme of things, it won’t affect us too much. We just had to juggle the schedule.”
As the Big 12 Championships get closer, the Jayhawks have been adjusting to a new type of training that started shortly after the first week of the spring semester. It includes shorter, faster sets with less rest to improve power, an important piece of the equation.
The conference championships will be held at the end of this month in Austin, Texas, Feb. 26-March 1.
