After coming off a big win against Northern Arizona University last week, the CSU women’s swimming and diving team looks to continue its roll of success this upcoming weekend.

As these two teams took their separate ways, the swimmers in Las Vegas and the divers in Missouri, they hope this mid-season test will prove to be a positive all-around performance.

“This is a pretty big meet for us,” assistant swim coach Mackenzie Brown said. “It’s a big deal for the girls because it’s a middle of the season marker as far as where they’re at and what they need to work on from now until conference.”

As far as what the competition is looking like at these invitational meets, it is anticipated to be a tough match up for CSU.

“There’s a lot of really fast teams here. (The University of California) is here and they have multiple Olympians on their team, so we’re going to be racing against some of the fastest college girls out there,” Brown said.

The competition is looking equally as fierce for the divers, but the coaches remain optimistic about CSU’s ability to perform.

“I’m hoping we perform pretty well,” assistant diving coach Kevin Witt said.  “It’s a good mid-season invitational meet where we get to see a lot of big teams from other part of the country that we normally would not see.”

IM swimmer Jessica Shepard is looking to have a banner weekend at this meet as she came out of last week’s meet being named the Mountain West swimming athlete of the week.

“I hope that I can do the same as I did at NAU,” Shepard said. “I hope we do well, there’s a lot of big teams going but I think we can do well. I’m just going to go into this weekend doing the best I can.

In all, this match-up for both the swimming and diving team will be a tell tale sign for what is to come for the girls this season. Given the fact that these athletes have already exceed the coaches and their own expectations, the outlook for their season is bright.

“I’m expecting big things. I try to go in to meets with an open mind. Since I’ve been involved with CSU, the girls are constantly surprising me. I just know how hard they work and they get tired but they always rally,” Brown said. “They’re a little nervous, but nervousness always turns into excitement as soon as they hit the water.”

Sports writer Hannah Cornish can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @hmcornish.