Swimming & Diving Opens C-USA Championship Action On Wednesday
Feb 23, 2010 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 23, 2010
Coach Guarriello's Comment's Following Tuesday's Practice
NEW ORLEANS - The Tulane University women's swimming and diving team will wrap up its first year back in the pool since the 2005-06 season when the Green Wave compete in the 2010 Conference USA Championships from Feb. 24-27 at the University of Houston Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.
The C-USA Championship begins on Wednesday with the 200 medley relay and 800 free relay. From there, the teams will compete in the 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and three-meter springboard and 400 medley relay on Thursday before performing the 400 IM, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back, 200 free relay and one-meter springboard on Friday. The 2010 C-USA Championship concludes on Saturday with the 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, 1650 free, 400 free relay and platform diving.
"Each girl on the team has the potential to stand out for us," Tulane head swimming and diving coach Lena Guarriello said. "Swimming is a little different in most sports in that there isn't a lot of instant gratification. While we've had season-best times throughout our regular season, 'taper' time is a little different. Each athlete can expect to swim significantly better due to the amount of rest that we've had over the last couple of weeks.
"Lauren Pfohl, Emily Needham, and Allie Evans are a few of our higher-seeded swimmers. I hope to see them hold or exceed their seeds in their respective events. All three of them have been consistently some of our top performers. I'm also very excited to see what our relays can do. We've made some changes to our relay line-ups and I think that the outcome is going to be great."
The Green Wave went 2-9 in dual meet action during the season, but enter the C-USA meet with a bit of momentum after defeating Vanderbilt, 183-89, back on Feb. 6 at the Reily Student Recreation Center Natatorium. In that meet, Tulane won 13-of-16 events, posted nine season-best times and saw a pair of lifetime marks fall.
Tulane is one of six women's teams competing in the 2010 C-USA meet, joining East Carolina, Houston, Marshall, Rice and SMU. The Houston CRWC will also host the league's men's programs which include Cal State Bakersfield, East Carolina, Hawai'i, North Dakota and SMU.
This week's meet marks the fourth time Tulane will participate in the C-USA Championship. Back in 2004 - the original re-incantation of the Tulane swimming and diving program - the Green Wave finished fifth out of seven teams with 486 points. A year later, Tulane scored 729 points to edge TCU by 9.5 points for the C-USA title. After learning of the program's suspension in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the Green Wave program was down to just 10 swimmers and one diver but still finished fourth of five teams with 402.5 points.
"It's exciting to be back at this meet and participating with such a talented group of athletes," Guarriello said. "The team has worked extremely hard. Most of them began in week one lifting weights for the first time in their lives. Now, looking back over the last 27 weeks, the girls have put in about 1.2 million yards of swimming in addition to two-to-three weight lifting sessions per week plus two-to-three runs per week.
"Ultimately, our goal is to have 100 percent season-best times this week. I think the girls are prepared to drop a significant amount of time in each event. I expect to see some of our school records drop over the next couple of days."
Wednesday's events begin at 2 p.m. with the men's one-meter springboard. Tulane's first event of the week is slated for 6 p.m. when the team takes the pool for the 200 medley relay.
Players Mentioned
