Northwestern women’s swimming coach Jimmy Tierney doesn’t exactly see Illinois as stiff competition for his team. So what better time to try something new?
“Overall we’ve got a little more talent,” he said. “We’re actually going to try some people in a few different events that they haven’t swum all the way. Some to help prepare them for relays that they might be in at the end of the year.”
Jumbled lineup and all, the Wildcats travel to Champaign tonight to take on the Fighting Illini. The event is NU’s third Big Ten dual meet of the season.
A key variable in Tierney’s experiment will be freshman Erica Rose. The Cleveland native has stepped up to become one of the team’s most dangerous distance freestylers, but tonight she’ll take a shot at a few different events. Tierney said he wanted to prepare Rose for the 400-yard individual medley.
Despite her new assignments, Rose wasn’t scratching her head.
“I’ve done those events in the past,” she said. “I’m really excited to swim different events. It’ll give me a chance to see how I do in those events because I’m used to swimming the 500 (freestyle) and the 1,000. I’m not preparing any differently.”
In addition to Rose, freshman Katie Simmons and sophomore Rachel Johnson will be trying out new events. They will both swim the 200 free.
Tierney said the freestyle events (50, 100, 200 and 500) will all be close and crucial to an NU victory.
“They’ll have to stand up to race really hard to try to win those events,” he said. “That’s what we need to try to do. They’ve done some fast times early in the year. So the (freestyles) will all be pretty good races for us Š if all our girls get up and race and hang tough.”
Tierney understands that his swimmers are fatigued after three tough weeks of training, but he doesn’t believe it will hinder their performances.
“That’s what champions do,” Tierney said. “They get up and fight through tiredness, and they still race hard. That’s what I’m looking for.”
To prevent a letdown, the Cats will have to keep Illinois’ top two swimmers in check — Anna Christiansen and Jessica Aveyard. Christiansen was Big Ten champion in the 400 IM.
Aveyard, an NCAA finalist in the 200 backstroke, will square off against NU captain Tashy Bohm in the backstroke. Tierney pointed to this as one of the more interesting matchups of the meet — Bohm beat Aveyard at last year’s Big Ten championships, and Aveyard topped Bohm at the NCAA championships.
Tierney doesn’t want to stomach the disappointment of another loss and hopes his team can begin building momentum.
“We just have to make sure we race as hard as we’re capable of doing,” Tierney said. “Obviously we want to win and take as many races as we can.
“If they race hard and win, even if the times aren’t great, that’s a step. It means something to be able to get to the wall first. We just want to take whatever positives we can have out of it, and hopefully we’ll have a victory. If we don’t win we’ll be pretty disappointed.”
