The Virginia men's and women's swimming and diving teams will travel to Maryland for their last dual meet of the regular season Saturday. The women's tournament will start next week, while the men get two weeks off before their tournament starts. The tournament, coincidently enough, will be held in College Park.
"Maryland, since it's at the pool where we will be racing our conference meet, [will be] kind of a dress rehearsal," junior Stefan Hirniak said. "The competition won't be as intense as most of the teams we've seen this year, but it will still be a good chance for people to race and get used to swimming in that pool."
If Virginia's schedule is helping the team prepare for the tournament now, it is not the first time. At the beginning of the year, both the men's and women's teams had a rigorous schedule. The men's team faced three of the nation's current top five, while the women swam against four of the current top five. "I think we've swum the type of schedule that will allow us to be tough," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "We've swum the number one team in the country [for] both genders; we've swum the number three team in the country on both genders. Both teams have competed against five or six teams that are ranked in the top 25."
This schedule has been especially advantageous for the men's team. At the beginning of this year, the men had a freshman class of seven swimmers. Combined with the 10 sophomores they already had, the Cavaliers were a very young team. The incoming swimmers needed to quickly adapt to collegiate level swimming in order to compete against high-level teams.
"You have to do it to understand it," Bernardino said. "The more the first years experience collegiate swimming and the more they experience the opportunity to be in meets against great competition -- that helps them mature."
In the past couple of weeks, though, Virginia has increased its level of preparedness by looking ahead to the ACC Tournament. The Cavaliers have specifically been focusing their training so that they will be racing their fastest when they compete in the ACC Tournament.
"Most people will be starting their tapers," Hirniak said. "Which means most people will start doing more speed work and resting a little bit and taking down the amount of yardage they're doing."
Before the Pittsburgh meet last week, the team had a tough workout. In the next few weeks, though, most players will be decreasing the distances they are swimming in an effort to remain fresh for the tournament.
While preparing for the crucial ACC Tournament has become a focal point of the team, the Cavaliers have made a point not to overlook the Terps.
"We'll go up to Maryland," Bernadino said. "We'll swim well, we'll compete well, but a lot of what we do now is going to be dedicated towards what we want to do in two weeks or three weeks from now."
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