(Photo: Alli Cline/WCSN)
The Arizona State women’s swim team has lost nearly all conference meets this season. One might think they would be discouraged heading into this weekend. However, given the way the team has prepared for this meet, everyone is ready to swim fast at the Pac-12 conference championships this weekend in Federal Way, WA.
“It’s been going great,” assistant coach Misty Hyman said. “They have done a lot of hard work all season and now it’s time to just relax. The hardest part has been just waiting around because we are excited to race.”
The preparation from this meet has been exciting for the team. After they finished their six-week training black in the winter, the women have been on a period of rest with light workouts to get the body in top shape
At the meet against Arizona, 17 personal best-times were recorded for the team. At that point in the season, Arizona State had not begun their taper period of recovery, so the team is virtually guaranteed to produce faster times this week.
“We are very excited,” junior Alysha Bush said. “Our coaches told us this week only worry about what you can control. Bob (Bowman) told us our taper is like baking a cake. At this point we have already put all of our ingredients in, we put it in the oven and baked it, and our job now is to take the cake and carefully put it on the table without dropping it. That is what taper is.”
The team could not be more excited to swim this week. In practice the swimmers showed a mental attitude that foreshadows fast racing. All week long ASU has been working on little things like flip turns, dives and relay exchanges, especially since the relays will be huge for ASU this weekend.
“I am really excited for our 200 medley relay,” Bush said. “It’s the first event of the day, and I think we have a really good chance of making the NCAA cuts.”
