Courtesy: Colorado State Athletics
Colorado State women’s swimming and diving team opened the season last weekend with some impressive individual performances at the Chick-fil-A Invitational, but this weekend starts the dual season and a team focus. The Rams will face Colorado School of Mines and New Mexico State in a double dual in Golden, wanting to start this season on a positive note and keep the momentum from an impressive 2021-22 campaign.
The Rams went 14-0 last season in duals, a program record for a single season. It also stands as the third-longest win streak in the team’s history, and a sweep of the Miners and Aggies would put them alone with the second lengthiest run.
“We’ll talk to them a bit about it but frame it in the context it’s a nice accomplishment but it’s a testament to history,” CSU coach Christopher Woodard said. “You want to mark yourself against the great teams that came before us and hopefully honor that commitment by showing, hey, we strive to do what you do and even beyond. It’s more about historical context maybe than just the W.”
In their history, the Rams are 3-0 against Mines, 14-2 against the Aggies, who finished fourth at the WAC Championships a year ago.
In an invitational field which featured a trio of Pac-12 teams, the Rams had some individual performances of note, starting with freshman Alexis Trietley’s victory in the 100-yard freestyle. She also finished fifth in the 50 free. Erin Dawson’s time and fifth-place showing in the 400 individual medley was impressive, as was the 3-4 finish of Maya White and Emily Chorpening in the 1,650 freestyle. In all, the Rams posted 13 top-eight swims at the meet, including all five relays.
Over the course of two days, the team has plenty of swims from which to build a base to vault from, as well as areas they’ll need to improve upon moving forward. Going from sea level to altitude where they train will factor into the advancement.
“Specifically, I don’t think we made too many mistakes. I liked the fact we were aggressive early in our races,” Woodard said. “We definitely need more training to be able to bring our races home, and there were certain athletes who struggle with the back half and with those struggles came the mental errors – breathing in and out of a turn, not finishing kicks and coming out really sharp on their underwaters. Hopefully those are the things we’re going to hammer away at when we have more time to focus on them.”
Duals are a different beast and Woodard has always preferred them, dating back to his competitive days. They provide instant competition with the lanes next to you, and over time, swimmers develop relationships against those they compete against often. In the end, it’s about place more than time, team over everything.
The lineup of events will also be different, steering away from the traditional NCAA format and adding some events (the teams will swim both the 200 IM and 400 IM at the meet), agreed upon prior by all three coaches.
“It’s head-to-head competition. It’s a misnomer with two teams in there, but it’s rivalries,” Woodard said. “It’s finding someone, beating someone knowing that you’re scoring points that matter to the overall score of the team which is not invite style.”
The meet, which features no diving, will begin at 11 a.m. The last time Colorado State won 15 consecutive duals was the first three seasons of the program when it opened 15-0. The record of 24 was set from 1977-81.
