Feb. 15, 2012
CARBONDALE, Ill. -
The Illinois State swimmers and divers will wrap up the 2011-12 season, starting Thursday, with three days of competition this weekend at Southern Illinois for the Missouri Valley Conference Championships.
"It is amazing how the season has flown by," head coach Steve Paska said. "We have been emphasizing this meet the whole year, and I believe we are looking at one of the fastest competitions in MVC championship history."
ISU was picked to finish third behind Missouri State and Southern Illinois in a pre-championship poll, as voted on my leagues' head coaches. The Redbirds rank five in the Valley this season in 12 individual swimming categories. However, Illinois State dominates in both diving categories, leading the MVC Best List in both the one-meter and three-meter dive.
Head diving coach Phil Hoffmann knows that nothing is guaranteed at the competition this weekend.
"We are seated by our scores in a very good position," Hoffmann said. "We have a strong team, but nothing is ever given to us, we have to earn it, and the same goes for this weekend. It is going to be a fight all the way through the top and bottom, but I think our divers are well prepared for the challenge."
Senior Brittany Tazzioli and sophomore Wenting Zhang will lead the team, having also qualified to advance to the 2012 zone diving regionals in March. Hoffmann also lists senior Polly Hirt as one of the top competitors to score points for the Redbirds.
"I look for Brittany, Wenting and Polly to lead us, but also the whole team has incredible depth and strength, which has played a huge role in our successes," Hoffmann said. "This is the biggest meet of the year for all our divers because it is the last meet the whole team will be swimming and diving together. We just want our seniors to have the best conference meet of their careers. They have been great contributors to this program over the last four years, and I hope we can give them the best send off possible, as a whole team."
Diving Preliminaries for the one-meter dive are scheduled for 12:30 p.m., with finals at 7:05 p.m. Prelims for the 3-meter dive are set for 11:30 a.m., with finals on Sat., at 6 p.m. The top-eight divers who advance will perform six optional dives for the finals.
The Redbird swimming and diving team ended its dual meet season 5-2, defeating conference opponents Evansville and Northern-Iowa. Along with duals, ISU also earned a fourth-place finish at the Zippy Invitational in Akron, Ohio.
Having coached in the Valley for 16 years, Paska knows how exciting these particular races will be.
"Every one of the schools we are up against has great depth from the seniors down to the freshmen," Paska said. "Every team has improved over the season. I think the preliminaries are going to be extremely important in terms of positioning and trying to get as many Redbird swimmers into the top eight. Being able to swim fast at 10 or 11 in the morning is going to play a significant role in deciding the championship."
Paska is looking forward to watching his senior student-athletes compete for the last time.
"I am especially excited to watch the seniors compete," Paska said. "It is the last hoorah for them, and it is very emotional because the student-athletes realize how much the sport has brought them. This group of senior swimmers and divers have shown a tremendous amount of pride in ISU, and I know they want to go out with a bang in one exciting MVC championship this weekend."
Preliminary races are scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m. Saturday. The top-eight swimmers from each event advance to finals, which are set for 6 p.m. on the first two days and 4 p.m. on Sunday.
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