The Cougar swimming and diving team travels to North Carolina this weekend to compete in four events in two days.’ The first begins at’ 5 p.m. today, when the Cougars compete against Duke and Georgia Tech in Durham, N.C.
The trips concludes at’ 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Wilmington, N.C., when the Cougars will compete against Emory and North Carolina-Wilmington.
Head coach Mark Taylor said that all four squads will provide stiff competition.
‘We have four teams in two days, and that’s going to be really hard, especially since we have two (Atlantic Coast Conference) teams that we go up against on Friday, which are both very, very good teams,” Taylor said.’ ‘Duke (has) more money than they know what to do with because of their basketball program, and Georgia Tech has a pool that used to be the Olympic pool in the 1996 Olympic Games, so they’ve just got a decisive advantage in that way on us, but you know what? We’re going to go in there, we’re going to see where we stand.
‘Saturday we have the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, which is an extremely strong program, and then we race against Division III Emory. They were second place at (the national championships) last year, so they’re a very good team also.’
Taylor says swimming against better competition will improve the team, preparing it for future competitions.
‘We’ve said this year (that) we’re going to up our schedule a little bit with a lot harder opponents, and boy, have we done that,’ Taylor said. ‘We’re definitely the underdog in both meets, and our girls are really excited about that opportunity, where they can face better competition. We’re trying to get better, and to do that you (have) got to compete against the better teams.’
On Oct. 9 and 10, the Cougars competed in the Phill Hansel Duals Weekend against Rice and Florida International in the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natatorium. UH won six of nine events and dominated in the freestyle competition.
Sophomore Kimberley Eeson won the individual 250 and 500-yard freestyle events, while participating in the winning 800-yard freestyle relay. The following week, Eeson earned her first Conference USA Swimmer of the Week award.
Taylor said he was proud of the team’s performance.
‘Those were individual events, so that was good,’ Taylor said. ‘Whenever we command that many individual events ‘hellip; that’s great.’
Taylor said he also likes the individual sacrifices his athletes are making in order to swim as a team.
‘I think our team is really gelling together,’ Taylor said. ‘The girls will have their favorite events that they like to participate in, but they’re willing to branch out and cross into different events. They’re all willing to make sacrifices and not do their best event to go some place where we think we need to be so they’ll score points.
‘Everybody’s got a great attitude, and everybody’s been working really hard.’
Taylor said that in order for the team to achieve its ultimate goals, the freshmen will need to develop their skills and versatility.
‘This time, we would like to see more of our freshmen step up and perform better,’ Taylor said. ‘We’re asking them to branch out and try different events and see where they fit in, and we’re asking them to just get up and race. When you race, sometimes you don’t do your best time, but you have to go ahead and fight.’
