The road to victory may not be an easy one over the next two days for the Northwestern women’s swimming and diving team as it takes on No. 13 Notre Dame and No. 17 Michigan.
The No. 16 Wildcats (4-2-1) travel to South Bend, Ind., today for a 5 p.m. dual.
NU head coach Jimmy Tierney said his team is ready for the Irish after Notre Dame (8-0) took the last two meetings between the teams. He said the Cats should be both mentally and physically sharp for the meet.
“I think we’ve done enough with our speed work and our pace work to be better than we’ve been in any of our dual meets,” he said.
NU has been close to beating the Irish the last two years, dropping a 158-141 contest in 2000 and a 154-146 decision in 2001.
Tierney said the Cats and the Irish have always been big rivals because of their geographic proximity. Despite struggling against Notre Dame in the regular season, the NU swimmers who qualify for the NCAA championships like to seek out their Irish counterparts.
“Even though they’re not in our conference, we always want to pick out their girls and their relays because we know we’re better than them,” she said.
Despite the tough competition, Tierney said his team is looking forward to the race.
“This is probably their best team ever, so we’re excited to go down there and take the challenge,” NU sophomore Erin Swenson said.
Swenson said she has an added stake in tonight’s meet against the Irish.
“I know that I really want to beat them because it was my decision between there and here,” she said. “I want us to do our best to prove that we can beat them.”
Swenson said she chose NU over Notre Dame because of the coaches and teammates.
“I like the way this program was going,” she said.
Award-winning performances: NU has received several national recognitions this month.
Sophomore Vicky West was named collegeswimming.com’s National Swimmer of the Week on Jan. 14. She received the title in the freestyle category after her performance at the Cats’ double dual with Tennessee and Auburn.
Junior teammate Susie Sample received the same award Jan. 28 after winning both backstroke events at NU’s dual with Penn State.
Freshman diver Ashley Carter was named Big Ten Diver of the Week Jan. 21 after recording a 304.58 in the 3-meter event against Penn State.
In addition, USA Swimming announced Tuesday that Tierney will be head coach of the women’s 2002 National Junior Team, which consists of 14 women younger than 15 years old chosen by their 2001 long-course world rankings.
The team will travel to Rome in early June for the meet, the XXXIX Trophy Seven Hills.
Tierney will be coaching a team in international competition for the second time. His first tour was in Mallorca, Spain, as an assistant coach for the U.S. in the 1999 World University Games.
Stepping Back to go forward: The Cats have already begun the process of tapering for the Big Ten championships, and Tierney said he hopes it will not affect them in a negative way for the meets Thursday and Friday. He said the body can initially react poorly to tapering before the benefits kick in.
“Emotionally you can overcome some of that,” Tierney said. “Emotionally they’ll be pretty good, and I just hope physically they can respond on the same level.”
