By Megan McDonald Cavalier Daily Associate Editor For most teams, the developmental scrimmage is a pre-season staple. The Virginia swim and dive team, however, has chosen instead to conclude its regular season with a developmental meet.
Although the results at this weekend's Navy Invitational will count toward their overall season records, both the men's and women's squads are focusing on racing the clock rather than their opponents.
"This meet is all about racing and being sharp," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "We are 21 days away from the championship for the women, 28 days away for the men. We have been really race sharp, and I just didn't want us to leave too much time in-between the last regular season meet and the championship meets."
From day one, the ACC Championships have been Virginia's focus. From the outset, Bernardino's training plan builds up to the conference meet by having the regular season's dual and quad meets serve as stepping stones. Those matchups provide a way to measure the team's progress; swimmers and coaches alike are more concerned with individual and team performances than with the outcomes.
As in past meets, the Cavaliers will hit the pool deck Saturday after an intense week of practice. Virginia rarely tapers for individual meets, but instead trains on a long-term horizon schedule.
"We aren't going to be rested," Bernardino said. "We are doing a bit of speed work and race pace work. We are gradually doing more and more of that and less aerobic work as we near the ACCs."
This weekend's non-conference competition should be fairly stiff. On the men's side, the Navy Midshipmen are 14-1 on the year. As for the women, the defending Patriot League Champions are 13-1 and poised to retain their title.
Each Cavalier is expected to swim two events Saturday, one of which they will race at the ACCs. The idea is to maintain a competitive edge and keep the swimmers in peak form.
"We want to etch a little bit more muscle memory into the tasks that they are performing," Bernardino said. "And hopefully sharpen some of the skills -- the really fine skills that we hope to have honed by the ACC finals."
Racing against swimmers with whom they are unfamiliar, the Cavaliers have one last chance to practice adapting their front-half and back-half race strategies to those of their opponents.
"We are really looking for execution of race strategies, pace strategies, turning well and good starts," Bernardino said.
After last Sunday's decisive victory against Pittsburgh, team morale is high, and Virginia's swimmers feel confident going into the final stretch.
"Right now we are set up pretty well for success in both the Navy and conference meets," senior Jake Shrum said. "It is a really exciting time right now."
As for the practice that awaits the team following this weekend's invitational in Annapolis, Bernardino said, "it's going to be lots of speed work and lots of recovery work"
Read More
Virginia annihilated 41-14 in a must-win contest versus North Carolina
By Peter Kriebel | 23 hours agoJust about everything that could have gone wrong for Virginia football went wrong.
No. 24 women’s soccer not to be denied in late win over Clemson
By Sam Chun | YesterdayThe Cavaliers topped Clemson 1-0 in front of a packed out Klöckner Stadium.
Men’s soccer, totally discombobulated, capitulates early to No. 5 Pittsburgh
By Michael Liebermann | YesterdayPittsburgh set a program record for the quickest cluster of three goals.
