Don’t remind freshman Uula Auren about how he slipped up in both the 100- and 200-yard breast last month against Missouri.
He won’t be happy.
But the Finnish sensation has learned a lot from those two disappointing losses.
“I tried one thing in the 100,” Auren said. “It obviously didn’t work too well. I went out too easy. Now I’ve been concentrating on the first 50, for example. The strategy now is to go out really fast and hope it lasts till the end.”
What was arguably the most impressive aspect of Northwestern’s grueling January schedule was how their times continued to improve as the month went on. In the last race alone, four individuals and one relay team set season-best times. After tapering for the past month, the Wildcats will look to take this momentum with them to Iowa City, Iowa, starting Wednesday for the Big Ten Championships.
Coach Jarod Schroeder said he can only hope that giving his swimmers all this time to taper can result in impressively strong times this week.
“That’s the expectation,” Schroeder said. “We put in a great chunk of training on our training trip. As we progress through the second half of our schedule, the goal is to start swimming races like you are going to at the end of the season. If you’re showing improvement, you’re showing that you are learning more from these races.”
Auren said he feels a responsibility to continue his improvement in his times.
“There is some pressure,” Auren said. “I can’t deny it. Especially for me. A lot of the pressure doesn’t come from anywhere on the outside. It’s more of the guys expecting a lot from themselves.”
Schroeder has been emphasizing all week that the team needs to put its focus only on the lane in which it is swimming.
“My message to our guys is that the thing we can control is our performance,” Schroeder said. “We could swim our best time in the 200 medley relay and somebody else could swim their best time in the 200 medley relay. We can’t control what they do, but we can control what we do. When it’s all said and done, if we do what I think we can do, we can get a relay or two qualified for NCAAs, and we are going to get some individuals qualified too.”
The Cats will be sending a youthful squad to Iowa City. Fourteen of the 21 swimmers on the Cats roster are underclassmen with minimal Big Ten Championship experience. Junior Charlie Rimkus, the only swimmer on the Cats’ roster to qualify for the NCAAs, said he feels it’s his duty to take some of the younger swimmers under his wing.
“We are trying to prepare the freshmen, who haven’t been to Big Tens, and reiterate to the younger guys who have been there before what a fast meet it is,” Rimkus said. “It’s going to be faster than all the other conferences in the nation. You have to get excited about that, but don’t let it freak you out either. It’s a much different meet than anyone has ever been to.”
But Auren isn’t losing any sleep over Big Tens. The freshman lives for the pressure that these kind of meets bring and knows that eyes all over the world will be watching him.
“I’m one of those guys where the more pressure you put, the better I swim,” Auren said. “I’m just trying to get as much pressure from myself. The guys are really helping with that too. I’m expecting a lot, and the coaches are expecting a lot. I have a bunch of people in Finland watching the meet too, and they are expecting a lot.”
