Swimming is peculiar in that the regular season is first and foremost a period of preparation for the postseason's championship meets. Today, as the Virginia women's swimming and diving team begins its quest for the ACC title, the Cavaliers are hopeful that the conference crown they have been striving towards all year will be theirs by the end of the weekend.
"We are going into this meet kind of as the underdogs," freshman Mei Christensen said. "No one expects us to win, but we know that if we do our best we can show everyone how great a team we are, how well we can swim and that we can win."
North Carolina and Florida State will be Virginia's fiercest competitors. To take the top spot, Virginia will have to draw on lessons from the dual meet season as well as last year's conference meet. Indeed, a little less than a month ago, the Cavalier women fell to the Tar Heels 182-118 at home. Unable to overcome North Carolina's early lead, Virginia won only five of the afternoon's 16 events and suffered its only ACC loss of the season.
The Seminoles are the reigning conference champions after edging Virginia out of first place on the final day of competition last year; they will now spend the next four days defending their title. In an effort to avenge their 2006 loss, Virginia has focused on improving in those areas where the Seminoles are particularly strong.
"They have a lot of fast relays," Christensen said. "Winning relays allows you to rack up a lot of points so we have to make sure that we really stay strong in those and get as many points as possible in those events."
With every school placing such a large emphasis on the ACC meet, the championships are a pressure cooker. To keep his swimmers calm and composed, Virginia coach Mark Bernardino makes sure his team operates under his philosophy of rigorous preparation.
"You should only feel pressure if you aren't prepared," Bernardino said. "Pressure is what you make of it and I feel that they are prepared. If they feel that they are prepared too, then they will be able to perform."
That preparation extends to both the physical and mental aspects of swimming. A four-day long competition is physically and emotionally exhausting. To train for such an extensive meet, the Cavaliers scheduled back-to-back meets during the dual season, swimming against one school Friday evening and another Saturday afternoon. The double-header weekends helped Virginia practice racing on consecutive days and maintaining a competitive mind set over an extended period of time.
"This meet is very emotionally draining," junior Stephanie Glover said. "Every time someone is up from U.Va. you are cheering and going crazy. It's also difficult physically -- you have to be on top of yourself by eating right, doing proper warm-ups and warm-downs, and keeping your body in shape and ready to go for the next race."
The women are headed down to North Carolina prepared to race and excited to compete. They know the title will go to the team that has the best meet, and their hopes are high that they have what it takes to bring the crown home for the first time since 2004. Regardless of the outcome, however, Bernardino is already looking back on the 2006-2007 season favorably.
"They have been a wonderful team, their chemistry has been awesome, their focus has been great and their preparation has been outstanding," Bernardino said. "I think that if they swim just for the sake of enjoying the sport and enjoying the moment, then that will produce the best performances of the year."
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