After a long offseason, the Colorado State women’s swim and dive team is ready to take the plunge into the 2019-20 season this Friday at the University of Denver.
The team will head to Denver for its first of four meets this month. Diving begins at 2 p.m., and swimming begins at 4 p.m. at El Pomar Natatorium.
Eighteen members who won letters from the 2018-19 campaign will return, including 13 of 16 swimmers who scored at the Mountain West championships. The Rams went 3-4 in dual meets and finished seventh at the conference meet last year. The Rams added 10 new faces to the roster, including nine freshmen and one transfer. The roster includes three seniors on the team.
“Knowing that we’ve got 19 underclassmen, freshman and sophomores, (we) really want to impress upon them how important it is to execute their races the way that we have prepped them,” Head Coach Christopher Woodard said.
The seniors include Andrea Basile (freestyle and backstroke), redshirt senior Julia Box (freestyle and butterfly) and Marie Goodwyn (butterfly). Box was the top scorer of the team in the 100m butterfly, with a time of 55.96 last year. Goodwyn led the team in the 400 individual medley with a time of 4:20.14.
Woodard has all 28 members of the team ready and entered for the competition. Six divers will compete on the 1- and 3-meter boards.
Rachel Holland returns to defend her top score of 279.83 in the 1-meter dive, and Skylar Williams comes back with a top score of 303.85 in the 3-meter dive.
Not only did the Rams add 10 new players to the roster, but they also added two new coaches to the coaching staff. Diving Coach Chris Bergere and Assistant Swim Coach Lisa Ginder (a DU graduate) will try to help start the team on a high note.
Woodard is on his ninth season as head coach of the Rams. He is heading into Friday with a specific goal, and it is not necessarily to win.
“I think more than anything else, we’ve worked a lot on technique and race strategy, so I want to see good racing skill more than anything else,” Woodard said. “We don’t want to start out of the gate where we’re missing turns or not dictating the tempo right up front in our races. Staying disciplined and executing our race strategy is the biggest thing early on.”
On Oct. 19, the Rams will head to Colorado Springs to take on Northern Arizona and rival Air Force at the U.S. Air Force Academy Natatorium.
Tyler Meguire can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @TMeguire.
