After four-time Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin verbally committed to join Cal next year, the already dominant Cal women’s swimming team will have another weapon to add to its impressive arsenal.
But all that comes next year. This year – and this weekend – Cal will be facing off in its first dual-meet of the season against BYU on Friday and against Utah on Saturday.
“We want to focus on getting a good dual meet under our belt and to gain racing experience,” associate head coach Kristen Cunnane said.
Experience is probably the number one priority for the large freshmen class. Although the freshmen have raced in many different events already, this will be the first time they will race in the dual meet format, which emphasizes teamwork rather than individual times.
“This will be my first actual college dual meet,” freshman Lauren Driscoll said. “Fresno gave me a little preview, but this will be legit. I’m nervous and excited, but it’s a good feeling.”
BYU was first in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference and Utah finished seventh in the NCAA championships last year. Traycie Swartz, who won the Mountain West conference title and qualified for the Olympic Trials, will be the swimmer from Utah to watch. BYU’s Andrea Grant made the MPSF All-Conference team as a freshman last year.
Coming off a tremendous win against Fresno State and San Jose State, No.1 Cal does not face any real pressure coming into this meet.
However, the three-time NCAA champions know that confidence comes with a price.
“We have confidence, but we also have a lot of room for improvement,” Cunnane said. “We need to look at what other top schools are doing and compare ourselves to them and not just the teams we’re racing against.”
Under the leadership of Caitlin Leverenz, the team’s undisputed leader, and head coach Teri McKeever, the Bears know that the NCAA championship in March is their first priority. Cal’s competition this meet will not be as stiff as No. 5 Georgia or No. 7 USC, Cal’s biggest opponents, so it is important for the underclassmen to ease into the dual meet format as quickly as possible.
“We don’t want to tell ourselves ‘we’re too tired’ or ‘we still have this left,’” Driscoll said. “We want a positive attitude and to push ourselves as hard as possible.”
In both of Cal’s previous meets, all swimmers swam nearly every event. This time, the Bears will only swim in their assigned events, allowing the athletes to be more focused in fewer number of events.
“Dual meets are really fun since they’re all about coming together as a team and beating the person in the cap next to you,” Cunnane said.
Cal knows that the times will not matter to them very much this meet, since the Bears will most likely come away with the win. Instead, Driscoll said that their main goal is just to motivate each other and to see how they can race in this format.
“I want to have a positive attitude toward all my races and just to push myself for every event,” Driscoll said.
Johnny Zhang covers women’s swim. Contact him at [email protected]
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