After finishing the season in tremendous style by going 6-0 in their last six competitions, Colorado State swimming and diving now turns its sights to the Mountain West Tournament in San Antonio, Texas.

Head coach Chris Woodard has taken an approach that will allow his swimmers to rest in the weeks leading up to the tournament, which begins on Fen. 14. The Rams are full of confidence in advance of the tournament.

“Heading into conference on a 6-0 win streak certainly helps our girls’ confidence,” Woodard said. “I think that is pretty key because as much as our sport is training and racing, there is a mental component to it as well, and I think feel pretty confident that they will accomplish some big things.”

CSU is not the only team in the Mountain West that has impressed this season. Boise State will be going into the tournament as another team looking to take the victory home with them.

“Boise State has put up good numbers across the board all season long by both their upper and lower division teams,” Woodard said.

Another school that CSU will focus on and train to beat is the University of New Mexico. New Mexico is home to Adriana Palomino, one of the most elite distance swimmers in the conference. The junior from Arizona was given all-MW honors as a sophomore and has continued to elevate the Lobos with her capabilities.

“Palomino is arguably the toughest distance swimmer in the conference,” Woodard said.

Despite all the competition the Rams will face in the tournament, they have stayed calm and collected in the days leading up to it. CSU has focused all of its efforts on improving themselves and have not paid a whole lot of attention to other teams in the conference.

“Really I’ve been focused on our top kids, those are the ones we have seen really high performances from all year and we expect to see even higher performances at Mountain West,” Woodard said.

Through the weeks of training, CSU has started to rest its swimmers in hopes that they will be ready to compete at a higher level at the tournament.

“We head in to this phase where we start to rest them and taper their workouts. They go through these phases where they’ll feel good, then they won’t feel good, but at the end they are rested and they will be ready to go come tournament time,” Woodard said.

CSU will compete in the Mountain West Tournament on Feb. 14-17. If they win, the Rams will continue onto the NCAA Tournament which will take place March 14-17 in Columbus, Ohio. 

Collegian sports reporter Evan Grant can be reached by email at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @EGrantSports.