The women's swimming and diving team hopes to bolster its 4-1 dual meet mark when No. 21 Notre Dame travels to Ann Arbor, Mich. to compete in the Michigan Invitational against host No. 16 Michigan and Illinois tonight and tomorrow.
"We want to find out where everyone's at and start planning for the Big East Championships," coach Bailey Weathers said. "[The meet] will let us know what we need to do in the next month to get ready."
Since the Irish will host the Wolverines on Jan. 31, scoring will only be kept against the Illini in this particular meet.
On Jan. 4, the Irish set four meet records in handily winning the second annual Puerto Rico Winter Training Meet in Encantada, Puerto Rico. The 200-yard medley relay team (Danielle Hulick, Laurie Musgrave and Lisa Garcia and Katie Carroll) in addition to Musgrave (100-yard breaststroke), Carroll (100-yard freestyle), and Ann Barton (200-yard backstroke) all recorded records in the victory.
After a particularly brutal fall season that saw most of team suffer a viral infection, the Irish finally appear to be at full strength with about a month remaining before the Big East Championships.
"I think we're pretty healthy," Weathers said. "The traveling [over break] tends to weaken the kids a little, but we're a lot healthier right now than we were at this time last year."
The men's squad (3-5) looks to continue its climb to .500 when the Irish journey to Pittsburgh to lock horns with the No. 17 Panthers as well as Villanova and Maryland in a quadrangular meet today and tomorrow.
"We're looking to see if we can pick up where we left off with our in-season meets," coach Tim Welsh said. "The question is always, 'Are we faster compared to ourselves than we were last time?'"
Last Friday, Notre Dame took care of both UC-Santa Barbara and Wyoming, 104-101 and 133-98, respectively, to finish off a 12-day training trip in Mission Viejo, Calif. over winter break.
The 400-yard freestyle relay team (Matt Obringer, Frank Krakowski, Tim Randolph and Louis Cavadini), Ted Brown (500- and 1,000-yard freestyle), Krakowski (50-yard freestyle) and Doug Bauman (200-yard backstroke) each recorded a first place finish as the Irish overcame a 21-point deficit to steal a victory over UCSB in the meet's final race.
The tri-meet victories coupled with intense training resulted in quite a successful holiday trip for the young team.
"The training trip was magnificent," Welsh said. "We trained hard everyday, raced well and we're very happy with the results. Now we have to translate those [results] to our season meets."
