Coach Guarriello's Comments Entering The Season Opener At LSU

Sept. 29, 2011

On her goals for the upcoming season
"Our goal is to be a Conference USA top-three contender this year. In addition to returning nearly all of our swimmers, we have seven freshmen that are filling some very important spaces in our line-up."

On how the team has prepared for this meet and what she expects from her team at LSU
"The team is pretty tired. We've been adding yardage each week since the team arrived on campus for the fall semester and some of them are swimming twice as much as the first two weeks of training. We have not rested since we started, so I anticipate that we'll be feeling a little sluggish and maybe even a little bit sore. This is normal for an in-season meet. The goal of this particular phase of training is to gain strength and build up our aerobic base. The team has been training very hard, so sore and sluggish isn't such a bad thing at this point."

On her team returning 18 letterwinners from a year ago and who has looked good in preseason practices
"We've actually had a handful of surprises in the pool since returning to campus this fall. Our sprinters look great. Kristine Gu is swimming better in practice than she ever has. Hagar Elgendy came back with a much improved freestyle and some really solid summer performances to give her a big boost in confidence. Rachel Ranson is healthy and has been a team leader in some pretty tough sets. From our mid-distance group, Gisele Calderon has gained a lot of strength and is doing extremely well in practice. And, Cari Caprio is as fit as I've ever seen her and it's really showing in the pool. Sadie Eicher is a completely different diver than she was a year ago and I'm excited to see her up on the boards tomorrow."

On Tulane's seven freshmen and how they have adjusted to the college atmosphere
"The freshmen have adjusted to college training really well. Most of them come to the team with a solid swimming background, but the strength-and-conditioning aspect of college swimming significantly increases their levels of fatigue in the first two to four months of training. The seven freshmen are mentally tough and pretty balanced emotionally, so this hasn't been a rough transition for them. Right off the bat, Claire Schelske and Vanessa Loewen will be immediate contributors in their events."

On LSU and how Tulane matches up with its opening-day opponent
"We match up better with LSU in the longer distance freestyle events than we do in any other event. In the past we have won a couple of relays and individual events. LSU is an extremely well-coached program that does a good job recruiting. Their team is very strong and we'll need to race smart and without fear to be competitive with our number two, three and four spots in each event. The goal for our program is to become more competitive with LSU with each year and to close the gap between the score so that we can turn this meet into a nail-biter. I think it would be great for both programs and for the sport of swimming in Louisiana. We're the only two NCAA Division I programs left in the state and I think it would be great to turn this into a more competitive match-up."