Hoosiers prepare for Michigan

Freshman freestyler David Bryant is eager to take on a Michigan team that all but ignored him during his college search. While Bryant eventually ended up at IU and placed first in the 500-yard and 1000-yard freestyles in the team's opening victory against Evansville, he sent an e-mail to the Michigan coach looking for information and never heard back. Now he and the rest of the Hoosier squad, are eager to show the Wolverines what they missed. \n"I want to show him he should have replied," Bryant said. "I want to do my best for Indiana, but Michigan is some of the best in the world, so it'll be a good race. That's the reason I came to America (from England), I wanted to play the best players in the world, and Michigan's up at the top."\nBryant will get the chance to show Michigan his talent today and propel the Hoosiers' record to 2-0 when the Hoosiers take on the Wolverines at the Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor, Mich. Head coach Kirk Kirchner said that while the level of competition will be tougher than against Evansville, he has a positive outlook for the entire team. \n"Our expectations are really high. I'd like it to be a fast team performance, fastest to date, and win\nevents," Kirchner said. "I'm looking for solid performances from everybody on our team, actually. We\nhave a strong, deep team in each event, and I'd like to see some of the young people get up and race real well."\nFreshman Murph Halasz placed first in the 200-yard butterfly and second in the 100-yard butterfly in the season-opening meet against Evansville on Oct. 20 but hopes to better those results against Michigan.\n"My turns were really bad against Evansville, so I've been changing that and hopefully it'll help me get a lot faster," Halasz said. \nSophomore Claes Anderson, who placed first in the 50-yard freestyle against Evansville, said his performance would need to be even better against Michigan.\n"I'm just going to go out and try to swim faster," he said. "I thought I swam pretty well, but I think I can go faster."\nKirchner will also look for strong contributions from sophomore Matt Leach in the backstroke events, freshman Val Milkov in the freestyle events and junior David Schulze in the breaststroke events.\n "I had a good first meet of the year, but Michigan is going to be a lot harder than Evansville," Schulze said. "Their breaststrokers are going to go about 10 seconds faster, so it's a much higher level of competition."\n The diving team also has an optimistic outlook for the season. Fresh from head coach Dr. Jeff Huber's fourth consecutive U.S. Diving Outstanding Senior Diving Coach, the Hoosiers will also open their season at Michigan. \n"We're not quite ready to dive up to our best, hopefully we'll do that in February, March and April," Huber said. "But I think we'll give them a good contest. It's tough going into Ann Arbor and winning, they're always tough."\nHuber said he expects solid diving out of sophomore Marc Carlton and freshman Ryan Fagan, a five-time All American in high school. \n"I'm hoping we'll do really well, I'm hoping we'll all score and we'll win," Carlton said. "I think we've got a lot of talent. We just need to do some more work and we'll be real good."\nBut Huber said the seasons' success wouldn't be measured by wins and losses, but instead by individual divers' personal improvements. \n"Once it starts, we just try to improve and dive to our greatest potential and then show that in the meet," he said. "Where ever that places us, that's where we want to be. I try not to look at place of finish with my athletes, I just ask them to focus on their performance and the things they need to do to perform at their best level."\nAfter Michigan, the Hoosiers next compete in the Indiana Invitational Nov. 16-18.