Swimming & Diving Quotes Following The LSU Meet
Oct 30, 2009 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Oct. 30, 2009
HEAD COACH Lena Guarriello
Overall thoughts on the meet
"The overall performance of our team today was great from start to finish - starting off with a big win in the 400 medley relay and finishing with a season-best in the 400 free relay. The girls swam really strong today. They put a lot of the things we've been working on in practice together, really cleaned up their races and raced well against a fast SEC team. I'm really pleased with today's performances all the way around."
On swimming several girls in off events
"We did. We kind of moved some of the girls around. A lot of the girls on the team have three or four or even five solid events. They kind of get pigeon holed into two or three because of the needs of the team. We were able to move some of them around and shift them into some different events today and they had some great performances. One of the reasons we do that is to see where we're going to score best at the conference championship. Right now, I'm kind of confused because they're swimming well in all of their events right now."
On if the win in the opening event was a morale booster across the board
"The girls swam very hard. I think the win in the 400 medley relay was very motivating. They were very psyched about the rest of the meet and they got excited. They got behind each other and really cheered each other on. That's something that we haven't really had yet. It was a spark at the beginning of the meet that really led the way for the rest of the competition."
On who stood out during Friday's meet
"Allie Evans was great for us today in the distance events. She was second in the 1,000 with a season-best time and first in the 500 only two seconds off her personal best. She had two really great swims and also contributed in the 400 free relay. She led off in a season-best time as well.
"Lauren Pfohl is an old faithful for us. She had two personal bests today in the 100 back and 200 back, winning the 200 back. She also was a season-best time in the 400 free relay. And our flyers were great today. The 200 flyers - Emily Needham, Gisele Calderon and Kylie Kastes - had a really great race. They were very even, and all of them had season-best performances. Some of them had the best in-season performance they've had in their lives. They were really awesome and turned around in the 100 fly and came back very solid again with Grace Tarka, Kylie Kastes, Gisele Calderon and Kayla Alf-Huynh. They all had a great race. All of them were eligible to score in the 100 fly, which means that LSU only had one scorer in that event."
On if today's performance can give the team confidence for the rest of the 2009-10 season
"It was a very big confidence booster. This meet shows the girls that they can achieve what we've been telling them they can achieve all along. It's hard to believe it until you can feel it and you can see it. That's what we did today. This meet really sets us up for a solid competition in Houston where we'll see LSU again in November."
On what it means to swim like this against a quality team like LSU
"It is big and it shows the girls that even though we may be a little less experienced and we may be a little smaller, but we can find ways to win and we can find ways to be competitive. That's just what we're going to have to do for the next couple of years. I think for now, it's given us a little bit of a glimpse of what our abilities are in the pool and where we might end up at the end of the season. It's just what we needed at this time of the year."
On what today's performance means for the upcoming meet at Houston
"We were able to swim personal best times with a lot of the girls. A lot of them are swimming in-season best times by several seconds. It shows us that next month, with three solid weeks of training without competition under our belts and a couple of days of rest, we can come out and surprise ourselves up well for our conference championship in February."
FRESHMAN Allie Evans
On her performance on Friday against LSU
"I just went out there and raced the best that I could race today. I tried to use all of the things I worked on in practice leading up to this and streamlined off the wall. The small things are the most important, and if you work on those you'll be perfectly fine in a race."
On if there were any nerves swimming against an SEC opponent
"I think we were all a little bit intimidated at first when we heard we were going to swim at LSU, but once we got to the pool, the positive energy, all of our cheering and helping out teammates made us swim the best that we could swim. The first relay really made it perfect. It was like, `We can do this.'"
On if today's meet gave the team some confidence
"It really boosts the team's confidence. It shows us that we can be put up against any challenge and put in 110 percent effort against it."
FRESHMAN Lauren Pfohl
On her performance against the Tigers
"We've been working really, really hard and we've had three weeks now to focus on our training, work on everything we need to work on and improve in the areas the coaches thought necessary. I feel that as a team, we were really ready to race hard today. Everyone was so excited to come up here and swim our first big meet against a big school. It was very exciting."
On if the win in the 400 medley relay set the tone for the day
"Our first event, we just took it out hard. We knew we were going to have to come up here and race. Everyone had their game faces on. After that first event, the momentum just kind of stayed up. Everyone was really pumped and excited to see that people were swimming fast, and that's contagious."
On if today's performance can provide a spark for the rest of the year
"After our last two meets, I don't think we necessarily felt down but a little worried. I think coming here, swimming fast and having those times was definitely what we needed to get us through our next three weeks of training for our next meet. Hopefully, we'll swim really fast in Houston."
Players Mentioned
