Season Opens With Chick-fil-A Invitational

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Coming off a perfect dual campaign, there is no easing into this season.

Colorado State's women's swimming and diving team heads to Fresno, Calif., for the Chick-fil-A Invitational on Friday and Saturday, a change in philosophy for CSU head coach Christopher Woodard. Instead of a big invitational to right before the holiday break, the Rams will test themselves fresh out of the blocks and use the rest of the season to build toward the Mountain West Championships.

"Some of it was change for the sake of change. We've gone to a midseason meet nearly every single year," said Woodard, entering his 12^th season. "There are some programs which do a one-peak season, essentially eliminating that rest phase in the middle of the season. I thought now was the time to challenge the team, coming off 14-0. We have some tough meets. It might be more of a point we need to train through the middle of the season, keep up our volume and maybe be a little more competitive when we get to the Mountain West Championships."

This weekend's field, hosted by Fresno State, includes additional Mountain West foes San Diego State, San Jose State and Nevada, as well as Pac-12 teams Cal and Washington State. The meet is divided into three sections, the first two on Friday. The first session begins at noon MT, with the second at 7 p.m. Saturday's events start at 11 a.m. The heats will be timed finals. There are links for live stats and a live stream.

Swimmers will be limited to a total of nine events in the meet, with no more than four individual races.

Colorado State returns four All-Mountain West swimmers in juniors Anika Johnson and Lucy Matheson, as well as sophomores Emily Chorpening and Maya White. Johnson was part of two all-conference relays, the 200- and 400-yard freestyle groups, with Megan Hager and Sarah Mundy additional returning legs of those quads.

Woodard is naturally curious as to where his group sits with their times, but more importantly, how they conduct their races this first meet. The staff amped up the training metrics they asked their student-athletes to pass this year in order to travel, and after what he felt was some early reluctance, he witnessed the team lean in on the assignment, with all of them passing except a few who are injured.

For this first meet, he wants to see his team go after races.

"There will be a whole lot more technical work, and I'll want to see execution, but it's more about aggressiveness," he said. "We've got an opportunity here, we're at sea level, let's swim every race really tough. They're timed finals, so you've got to out. There's not really a weak team in the field, and that's part of it. In a meet like this, knowing there are four teams we're going to see at conference and two other really good teams, and being the first meet, everybody is there to impress."

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