Both the Ball State University men's and women's swimming and diving teams had successful meets last weekend by winning the House of Champions meet at IUPUI. However, in order to be successful this weekend, co-coach Laura Seibold-Caudill said it will take a more competitive effort to overcome Big Ten Conference competitor Michigan State University.
"Time for time, event for event, [Michigan State has] the advantage on us," Seibold-Caudill said. "In order for us to win, it will take a bigger effort than last weekend at IUPUI. It will take an effort like we had against Bowling Green [State University] plus some. It will have to be an extremely good day for us and a bad day for them."
The women's team beat Bowling Green 190-110 on Nov. 11, and last weekend at IUPUI they placed first out of six teams.
Diving was a key event for the Cardinals. Senior Katie Boyle won the 1-meter diving board while junior Stephanie Paul took second on the same board. Then the two switched placings as Paul won the 3-meter board with Boyle finishing second. Seibold-Caudill said that a similar performance will be needed to stop the Spartan divers.
"My goal on diving is to split them up and not let them sweep us," she said. "We need to work as a team to prevent the sweep and this team is capable of doing that; they just have to show it."
According to co-coach Bob Thomas, the women's swimmers were also successful in the House of Champions meet by having 23 swimmers post a season-best time in one of their events.
"I'm anticipating that they are ready to break out," Thomas said. "The girls have the opportunity to compete with them. In the past, we've come close [to beating Michigan State] so I think it's about time."
Thomas says he also expects the men's team to up their level of competition this weekend because they posted 76 season-best times last weekend.
"Our guys' team is a little undermanned because they are stronger than us talent wise," Thomas said. "But we are looking forward to going up there and competing against a Big Ten team."
In practice this week, the team has been working on whatever conditioning they've lost during the past two weeks because of Thanksgiving break, Thomas said.
"We've been doing a lot of aerobic work this week, which is similar to preseason workouts," Thomas said. "We haven't been doing sprint work, but that won't retard their explosiveness."
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