Oct. 9, 2008
NORMAL, Ill. -
The Illinois State swimming and diving team will bring competition back to ISU as the Redbirds host the St. Louis University Billikens and their Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) rival the Northern Iowa Panthers at Horton Pool Friday Oct. 5. The dual meet follows a second-place finish for the Redbirds at the Dennis Stark Relays and is the third of five consecutive meets for the Redbirds.
Going into a third-consecutive week of competition, head coach Steve Paska feels each meet should be taken one week at a time.
"Last week was a terrific learning experience for us. A number of swimmers got a great deal of race experience that I think will carry over throughout the rest of the semester," Paska said. "Northern Iowa and St. Louis both have a number of quality swimmers and there are going to be some very competitive races. I think it is going to be an outstanding environment for a collegiate dual meet."
The dual meet is one of three home meets left for the Redbirds this season. Paska is looking forward to the atmosphere a home meet will bring.
"We're excited about having a home meet," Paska said. "We should have a really good crowd. Every swimmer and diver should take tremendous pride in competing in front of the home crowd. Parents, friends, relatives, and other student-athletes will be filtering into the pool and the excitement that I think will be there is going to be tremendous. We have had an outstanding week of practice and the girls are going to take every opportunity to excel at home."
Illinois State will be competing against St. Louis on the diving board; Northern Iowa will not be competing in diving events. Junior Katelyn Prorok, the reigning MVC diver of the week, will be leading the Redbirds against St. Louis on the diving board.
"I look forward to once again being led by Katelyn, as well as Polly Hirt, our freshman diver who is quickly becoming one of our most consistent divers," said ISU head diving coach Phil Hoffmann. "St. Louis has a very strong diving line-up coming. They have a couple of girls who have Junior National experience and I look forward to having our girls compete against divers of that caliber."
This is the first competition in the 2008-09 season in which the entire Redbird diving team will be competing together.
"We are going to have all of our divers compete this weekend, so I look forward to have having our whole team together and seeing what we can do as a group," Hoffmann said. "It`ll be a great home meet for us and I look forward to having a strong competition against St. Louis."
