The women of the Virginia swim and dive team will take on Richmond tonight in a mid-week dual meet at the Aquatic & Fitness Center.
Tonight's competition will be the Spiders' last regular-season meet before heading to Buffalo, N.Y. for the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships. Scheduling difficulties prompted Richmond to suggest this mid-week match-up and the Cavaliers, seeing the opportunity to gain additional racing experience before their own conference championships, agreed.
"Wednesday night will be a good time to get in some races," junior Stephanie Glover said. "We are two weeks out from ACCs so it will be a good chance to see how we are improving and to get into that mentality of working hard and striving towards our goal of winning."
Following last weekend's non-conference victory over Pittsburgh, the Cavalier women enter tonight's competition 5-3 on the year.
"We saw probably the best Pitt team, from both their men and women's programs, that I have seen in five years," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "We were still a little bit fatigued from a pretty heavy training week but I felt like we did everything we needed to be successful. It was a good team effort and a good solid win over a good team."
Overall, Virginia is feeling confident about the team's position going into tonight's meet. The coaching staff views the meet as a positive addition to the training program, and Bernardino thinks it is an excellent opportunity for the women to race an in-state opponent.
"We are going to use this meet as a lactate tolerance day in training," Bernardino said. "It should be a good fun meet and I'll get a chance to see some of the kids in their secondary events once more prior to going up against Maryland on Saturday."
With the ACC Championships beginning exactly two weeks from today, the meet will also provide a chance for the Virginia women to demonstrate the progress they have made over the course of this season. Bernardino described the women as having tremendous chemistry and cohesion all year and as being a pleasure to coach. Nevertheless, he said he feels they have recently really come together.
"They are confident, they are having fun with practice, they are having fun in their meets and hopefully that will be reflected in great performances in the end," Bernardino said.
The women themselves feel much the same way. Despite losing to North Carolina two weeks ago, the team members recognize that they swam well and had the emotion and mentality needed to win. With the upcoming championships providing a chance to avenge that loss, the women say they will be in a position to win.
"I think we are feeling really positive about the direction we are going in," senior Jenny Steiner said. "Each meet we get a little better and a little bit sharper and feel a little bit more prepared for the end of the season. Everyone is training well and staying positive and getting really excited for ACCs."
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