The women’s swimming and diving team is preparing for Wednesday’s same-day meets against North Texas and Incarnate Word.Head coach Richard Sybesma said North Texas is an improving program and will be a measuring stick to gauge the team’s progress.
“It will be a real test to see where we are in our season,” Sybesma said. “We open the Mountain West meets a week later, so it will be kind of a chance to get our feet wet.”
In the second meet, because of Incarnate Word’s team consisting of only three swimmers, the Incarnate Word swimmers will be swimming both with and against the Frogs, Sybesma said.
This means Incarnate Word will be competing with TCU against North Texas on some events and against TCU with North Texas on other events.
The Frogs are coming off successful, season-opening showings Oct. 5 against McMurry and Texas-Permian Basin on the same day, much like tomorrow’s same-day meets.
“Those meets were good in the sense that we weren’t rested for those games,” said Kendra Jackson, senior sprinter and freestyle swimmer. “They were more like practice meets. It was a good idea of how we perform tired.”
Although it’s still early in the 2006-2007 season, the Frogs said they are happy with their progress so far this season.
“I think we’re a strong team this year,” said Kelly Wannemacher, senior sprinter. “We’ve got strong freshmen, a strong senior class, and we’ve trained really hard so far.”
Sybesma said swimming against North Texas will be a fun meet for the team, but it won’t be a meet the team can take lightly.
“In the past, I think we’ve been able to take North Texas and swim against them at half strength,” Sybesma said. “And this year, we’re going to have to swim at least three-quarter strength to beat them.”
During the North Texas meet, several swimmers will get the chance to compete in different events than they normally would, Sybesma said.
“We just test some people out in their best events and other people out in some off events to see kind of where we are,” Jackson said.
Sybesma said this meet will be a good chance for all of his swimmers to get in the water and compete.
“We’re hoping to get all of our kids in the meet and get some experience,” Sybesma said. “We can’t just take for granted that we’re going to beat them.