Jayhawks Take On Fighting Illini In Third Road Contest
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas swimming and diving team heads to Champaign, Ill., to take on Illinois Saturday, at 10 a.m., in the ARC pool.
Kansas, 2-2 in dual meets this season, is looking to build upon the momentum established last Saturday, when the Jayhawks grabbed a 2-0 double dual meet win at home.
“This is our dual meet heading into our Kansas Classic meet,” head coach Clark Campbell said. “I want to continue getting better competitively. We took a step forward last week at our home meet, but we want to continue to build on that for tomorrow.”
Campbell is expecting to see strong performances from the seniors, but also wants to see Chelsie Miller build off her accomplishment last weekend breaking a Robinson Natatorium pool record in the 400-yard individual medley (4:18.76).
“Last week we had a lot of people step up,” Campbell said. “It is going to be important that our seniors perform well. Our seniors were all over the map last week because of the emotional effect of it being senior day. I hope they bounce back and have a more focused competition. I’m looking for Chelsie to keep her momentum going. Hopefully in a couple weeks we will be taking her and a couple of her teammates to USA Nationals.”
The Fighting Illini are led by senior Jessica Holz who posted a new season top time in the 200-yard backstroke (2:03.01) last weekend when Illinois swam against Illinois State. Holz placed first in that event and in the 100-yard backstroke as well with a time of 58.01.
“The two teams match up well together and it’s going to be very competitive,” Campbell said. “We are also doing it at 10 in the morning because that is the same time preliminaries start at championship meets. It’s a bit of a difference approaching a morning meet as opposed to an afternoon or evening one. It gives us the opportunity to get the feel of what it is going to be like competing in meets with that schedule. We can establish a routine for fast morning swimming. It’s very specific to what we will do at championship meets.”
Team leadership is important when swimming on the road and Campbell said the team’s three captains, Lusk, Moffit, and Sharp, have done a good job of stepping into that role.
“They all have a lot of experience with big meets,” Campbell said. “I see them take ownership of the team. This year, it’s really about being road winners. We travel so much to compete that we need people on the team that step up and take charge. Competing on the road is different than competing at home and performing well out of our own pool will help us down the road with performing well at the conference championships.”
