The Iowa swimming and diving team will kick off the Hawkeye Invitational today, with the women’s squad hosting 10 schools in the championship-style competition.
The Hawks will welcome schools from all over the country, including Denver, Drury, Harvard, Milwaukee, Incarnate Word, North Dakota, and Northern Iowa. Nebraska, Illinois, and Iowa State will only bring divers to the competition.
The meet will begin with today’s 10 a.m. preliminaries, followed by the day’s finals at 6 p.m.Saturday will feature the same schedule, while Dec. 6 will consist of 10 a.m. preliminaries and 4 p.m.finals. All events will be held in the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium.
Because the Hawkeyes grabbed the team title at last year’s event, head coach Marc Long is confident that the women’s team will defend the home pool.
“It’s a championship-style event, so they’ll get to swim their primary events,” he said. “They’re not just competing for themselves, they’re competing for each other. That type of excitement with some great competition coming in will definitely fuel the fire.”
The women enter the weekend on the heels of two-straight Big Ten defeats, falling to Minnesota on Oct. 30 and Purdue on Nov. 6.
Sophomore Rowan Hauber enters the event with the team’s season-best time in the 100 back and the second-best time in the 200 back.
Hauber said that after experiencing the invitational last year, she knows what to expect from the highly competitive weekend.
“We need a good team atmosphere,” she said. “Last year, the weekend went by so fast, so we have to know that every race matters a lot. We need to get up for those prelim races. They can be really difficult.”
Sophomore Meghan Lavelle, Hauber’s competitor in the backstroke events, understands the importance that defending the team title will require the Hawks’ best effort.
“Obviously, we won last year, and there’s some great competition again this time,” Lavelle said. “I expect us to put up a great fight and race them off.”
The men’s side, also off for a month from competition, is also coming off back-to-back losses, but is also the defending champion of the event.
The Hawkeyes have had an extended training period for the first time since the season started, and this weekend will be the first time Long and the rest of the coaching staff will be able to see how much the training paid off for the 2-2 Hawks.
Extended off periods to work on training can do a lot of good for a team that aspires to swim deep into February and March, but the young Hawkeyes said they made sure not to develop bad habits during the break.
“It’s tricky,” senior Jackson Allen said. “It’s a good opportunity to focus on training and getting ready for the next meet, but you also don’t want to lapse into where you forget that at the end of the day it’s about racing and not about practicing. But I think it’s been really good for us to regroup and focus on the small stuff before peak season.”
The Hawkeye Invitational will be held over three days, with preliminaries being held each morning of competition followed by finals of each event that evening.
Long said this morning’s session will be the most important one of the meet.
“You’ve got to do your job in the morning to set yourself up for a great night swim, just like any championship meet,” he said. “These guys need to step up if they want to beat the person next to them; it’s really that simple. If they do that, the times will follow.
“I think they’ll be ready to swim fast and take advantage of the opportunity to compete against great competition and, hopefully, get some wins.”
This meet will be especially important for the younger group of swimmers, who just got through their first extended time off since joining the Hawkeye squad.
As for the rest of the team, Long hopes the annual meet will help propel them to success.
The Hawkeye Invitational will serve as the peak meet the early season.
