Three years ago, when Idaho coach Mark Sowa took over the Idaho swim and dive program, he said his goal was to not finish last in the WAC. Now, his team heads into the WAC Championships with the goal of winning the conference.
The Vandals begin the WAC Championships Wednesday in San Antonio. The four-day meet concludes on Saturday.
“We’re ready to go fast, we’re ready to dive well and we’re looking forward to it,” Sowa said.
Idaho enters the meet with a 4-1 record against WAC teams on the season, its only loss Nov. 2 at Northern Arizona. The Vandal victories came against Northern Colorado, Grand Canyon, Seattle U and New Mexico State.
Despite Idaho’s dominance in the WAC so far this season, Sowa said Idaho will have to watch out for every team at the championship meet.
“Northern Arizona … they’re pretty darn good, Grand Canyon’s got some studs, Cal Bakersfield’s freestylers are really, really good, New Mexico State’s got great kids in the stroke events … everybody could ruin our day,” Sowa said. “But again, we’re not worried about those people. We focus on each other.”
The Vandals have some solid players of their own. Junior Rachel Millet enters the conference championship as the fastest WAC swimmer in the 50-yard freestyle, 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley. Idaho also has senior diver Paige Hunt, who owns every current Vandal diving record.
Millet and Hunt should impress at the WAC Championships, but the team knows winning the meet will come down to the depth of the team.
“Mark (Sowa) told us that it’s not just going to be about winning events, it’s going to have to be those people that sneak in … that score and those that weren’t supposed to be in any finals that we know can, that are really going to bring the points that we need in order to win,” Millet said.
The four-day meet will take a toll on the swimmers, so Sowa said it’s been nice to rest and focus on speed in the training leading up to the meet. The Vandals haven’t competed as a team since Jan. 25 when they beat Oregon State on Senior Day.
“I think it helps us a ton,” Sowa said of having a long break before the championships. “It’s nice to be home. Travelling from Moscow takes it’s toll on them physically, so it’s nice to get healthy.”
Idaho has a strong junior and senior class this season, but the biggest class is the freshmen class. About a third of the team consists of freshmen that have never competed in a collegiate championship environment. Still, Sowa is confident in the leadership his upperclassmen bring.
“Our junior class is incredibly dynamic and our senior leadership is really, really good,” Sowa said. “Our junior class was freshmen when our coaching staff got here, and they weren’t quite ready for the emotional rollercoaster of that WAC Championship meet. I think that class in particular is going to really help the freshmen.”
Idaho junior Erica Anderson said that some of Idaho’s best events will come on Friday, but the team can’t look ahead. If the Vandals are still in contention by the time Friday rolls around, they have a solid shot at winning the championship.
“The beauty of swimming and diving is that we control our own destiny in a lot of ways. We can’t control what other teams do,” Sowa said. “It’s not like we can block better or set a pick or anything along those lines. What we do, either on the boards or in the lanes, is up to us.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]