Tomorrow afternoon, the seniors of the Virginia swim and dive team will race one last time in the Aquatic & Fitness Center. The Cavaliers are hosting the Terrapins in their final regular season meet before the ACC Championships.
"This meet will be a good indication of where we are right now," senior Vanja Rogulj said. "Hopefully the results are going to be where they need to be, especially for the women's team since their meet is in just a week and a half. I hope there are some good times."
For the team's nine seniors, tomorrow will be an emotionally charged day. On the women's team, Rory Schmidt, Jenny Steiner, Erin Corgan, Tyler Gordon and Katy Bland are graduating; the men will lose Elliott Beaulieu, Greg Imboden, John Millen, and Rogulj.
"It's a bittersweet day," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "They are excited and they are revved up to swim. But when the day ends, they know they will be looking at the clock in this pool for the last time."
Given the expectation for a highly emotional meet, the team is focused on approaching its races with an athletic attitude. While Bernardino said he believes the meet will be fun, he has stressed that this dual meet is the final step on the way to the team's most important meet of the year.
"You try not to bring nostalgia into a meet like this as much as you can," Bernardino said. "You try to recognize and realize that this is a really important meet for [the seniors]... because [they are] preparing for the biggest meet of [their] athletic career. And that biggest meet is the next one."
Although it is one of the weaker teams in the conference, Maryland should nevertheless provide a challenge for Virginia. The Terrapins have several excellent swimmers who should challenge the Cavaliers in some major events.
"We will be racing too good of a team for us to think of it in any other way," Bernardino said. "It's going to be our rock solid lineup going against Maryland. It will be more or less the same lineup that we will have at ACCs with a few small variations."
Tomorrow's races will be the Cavaliers' last chance to race competitively before they travel to Chapel Hill, N.C. for the ACC Championships. While the women had the opportunity to tweak their race strategies at Wednesday night's meet against Richmond, the men have had the week off. Saturday afternoon, both teams will be looking for performances that will give them the confidence and competitive edge they need.
"In the last meet we want everyone to try and get one season's best performance," Bernardino said. "We want that mental edge going into the conference championship meet and we want them to be able to say that in their last meet, 'I swam a season's best time.'"
The women's three-day championships are scheduled for Feb. 14 to 17 while the men's meet will take place the following weekend, Feb. 21 to 24.
"Just having a lot of us swim well and having personal bests from everyone would be great," freshman Mei Christensen said. "Collectively, good personal swims will give us the confidence we need to go into ACCs"
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