Hoosier swimming will increase its competition on a national level this week, and IU Coach Ray Looze said it’s an opportunity for the swimmers to hone their skills while racing from behind.
More than 40 Hoosier swimmers will head south to compete at Georgia Tech in the USA Winter Nationals starting Wednesday and going through Saturday.
“Nationals is a really good meet to get some good racing in with good competition around the country,” senior swimmer Bailey Pressey said.
The event also comes on the heals of the USA College Challenge, in which 14 Hoosiers were able to show their chops against some of the world’s best swimmers. Now many of those same athletes, along with reinforcements from Bloomington, will take on swimmers from high school to the professional level in Atlanta.
“To get the team to sort of be battle-hardened, you gotta run them by really top-notch universities in the dual meet area but also a top notch invitational, and that’s essentially what this is,” Looze said.
While a meet the size of Winter Nationals can seem somewhat daunting to a small team, there will be no shortage of Hoosiers in Atlanta.
“It makes it so much more fun, so much more enjoyable,” Pressey said. “Going to a big meet like that with a small team makes it a little bit more stressful, but being able to have such a big team and such a big presence at a meet like that it really helps you to just focus on you and your team and your swims and makes it a little bit easier to swim fast.”
This week will also have preliminary or qualifying rounds, something Looze and his staff will emphasize in their team meetings prior to the meet because many swimmers haven’t faced these yet this season.
“The most important thing is to be sharp in prelims because if you take a misstep there you don’t even get to swim at night,” Looze said.
The meet will also present an opportunity for swimmers who have competed well lately and are looking to take the next step in helping the Hoosiers compete at the Big Ten and NCAA Championships in the spring.
Senior Bob Glover is one of those athletes. Glvoer had a coming out party last year, when he earned first team and All-Academic Big Ten honors. Glover has continued his stride this season. He hit the NCAA B cut time for the 200-yard backstroke at the USA College Challenge and won a number of races against top-flight competition like Tennessee, Florida and Texas.
“You’re looking to swim fast, and you’re looking to swim with confidence and really treat it as more of a championship-style meet” Glover said.
Despite the tall task ahead of the Hoosiers, they feel confident going into Atlanta and intend to leave with some hardware.
“I train with Olympians every day,” Pressey said. “So it’s kind of like an expectation that we perform great even with other greats right beside us.”
