Kansas Hosts William Jewell for Final Meet of 2015
LAWRENCE, Kan. – While a select group of Jayhawks are competing at AT&T Winter Nationals, the bulk of the Kansas squad will compete in its final meet before the New Year as they host William Jewell for a dual inside Robinson Natatorium Friday.
Five Jayhawks – Chelsie Miller, Haley Molden, Yulya Kuchkarova, Lydia Pocisk and Libby Walker – are attempting to log new personal bests while chasing Olympic Trials qualifying times while the majority of the Kansas swimming team will be looking to match a peak performance of the fall in their non-technical suits. Kansas used 80 season-best times to vault to No. 32 ranking in CollegeSwimming.com’s top-50 after the Big Challenge in Topeka (Nov. 20-22).
“Now that they have suited times with a bit of rest, it’s about how close can you get to those marks,” Kansas head coach Clark Campbell said. “The goal for this meet coming up and then everything until the last dual meet of the year is how close can you get to those fall invite times without the technical suit and without the rest in the midst of training.”
The schedule of events will be slightly modified from KU’s regular dual meet slate that has seen the Jayhawks post a 3-1 record throughout the fall. The competition will consist of just 11 events instead of the normal 16 with a longer event order and no diving competition. The longer events include the 200’s of the strokes and will leave out the sprints in the individual events. The 400-yard freestyle and medley relays will take place of the usual 200-yard relays.
The change up in the schedule will give the swimmers an opportunity to compete in races outside of their marquee events against William Jewell. Still the expectations will remain the same as any other meet.
“For everybody, whether they’re going to nationals or this meet, it’s the last competitive effort of 2015,” Campbell said. “Now it’s really time to hone in on the racing thing and just don’t waste an opportunity and set the bar. For some they set the bar really high and now it’s a matter of redoing some things, but at a much higher level. Because they had such a good fall we can really do some cool things now and make them even better.”
Friday’s meet will start at 5 p.m. and admission is free.
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