On Saturday, the men's swimming and diving team will be taking on Mid-American Conference rival Miami with plans on doing what the women's team couldn't come up with last weekend: a win.
"Miami's quite strong," co-coach Bob Thomas said. "They're the second-best team in the conference. The times that they have been posting so far are faster than what we've done."
The men's team (1-0 in dual meets) hasn't competed since they traveled to Buffalo in late October and has used the time off to do more conditioning and training to get them better prepared for Saturday's meet.
"We're getting real pumped up about it and focusing on trying to beat them," Griff Goas said.
Miami is one of the biggest competitors the team will face this year, and the men's team is looking to make an impression on them now, before the MAC championships in March.
"They're our main rival, so it's nice to see where they're at, too," Jim Lullo said.
Both coaches are expecting big performances from Adam Konopka in backstroke, Kurtis Leer in freestyle, Ritchie Caudill in breaststroke, Jim Lullo in the distance swim and Zach Whitaker for the diving team.
Last weekend, the women's team lost to Miami 180-120 in a meet in which the Cardinals had an early lead, but ended the meet by winning only one of the last six events.
"We just gotta keep it going and not let up the second half of the meet," Megan Ploetz said.
The women's swimming and diving team are fixing mistakes and getting prepared to battle their fourth straight MAC team.
The women's team (2-1 in dual meets) will be going against Bowling Green (0-4 in dual meets) on Friday in a 16-event dual meet that will allow more swimmers to do more events.
"We've got to be able to out-score them in their strong events so that we can have our depth come through to work for us," co-coach Laura Seibold-Caudill said.
In all three dual meets of the season thus far, the first event swam each meet has been the 400-yard medley relay. Brittany Sayler, Addison Del Rio, Erin Johnson and Abby Arnold have won the event every time, and according to Del Rio, winning the event is the best way to start the meet for them and the team.
"It's huge," Del Rio said. "It's all about momentum. It not only knocks the other team down a little bit, but it builds us up a lot."
The women's team will play host to Bowling Green Friday at 6 p.m., and the men's team will play host to Miami on Saturday at 1 p.m., with both events at Lewellen Pool.
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