The Irish will be splitting up this weekend to participate in two extremely competitive meets that will test Notre Dame's mettle.
The Irish swimmers will head to Columbus, Ohio, to take part in the U.S. Nationals swim meet, while the Notre Dame divers will head to Iowa City, Iowa, for the Hawkeye Invitational.
The Hawkeye Invitational is a three-day event that will span from Friday through Sunday. The U.S. Nationals are also a three-day event, stretching from Thursday through Saturday.
The Hawkeye Invitational will be comprised of a competitive field of diving teams. Iowa, Denver, Illinois, Northern Iowa, South Dakota State, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Notre Dame and Ohio State.
For the Notre Dame swimmers, the U.S. Nationals will also be challenging to test the waters of their swimming potential.
"We have just been continuing to practice like normal," Maxwell said. "Our team has been focusing on getting better every day. We haven't been doing anything specifically for this meet; we have just been trying to improve our overall performance."
Because the meet is a national invitational event, the swimmers had to meet certain standards to be able to take part in the three-day event.
"There will be several teams at this meet including club and college teams," Maxwell said. "One of our toughest opponents will be Cal. They have a very good swimming program."
The meets that will take place this weekend will offer ample opportunity for both the swimmers and divers to go up against excellent competition and to get a lot of events in during the three days.
"We want to use this meet to get lots of swims in and evaluate where we are at this point in the season," Maxwell said. "All of the events will be very interesting to watch because the level of competition is higher than that at a dual meet."
