Rams Focused on Finishing Their Goals
Perfect dual season has bolstered confidence for Mountain West Championships
Mike Brohard
Never lose sight.
Not of what should be celebrated, and the 2021-22 season produced plenty of highlights for the Colorado State women’s swimming and diving team. It starts with an undefeated dual season, 14-0, the first unblemished mark for the program in 21 seasons and establishing a single-season record for dual wins in a year.
The Rams did it with 62 personal bests established throughout the year by returners, and 18 performances reordering the program’s top 10 lists, led by freshman diver Lindsay Gizzi’s school record of 335.05 on the 1-meter springboard.
They’ve relished in those moments, as they should. But they also enter the final weekend of the season – the Mountain West Championships in College Station, Texas – feeling a bit unresolved.
“We’re still chasing things. I’m very confident about us doing well at conference,” sophomore Anika Johnson said. “Our performance so far this season can attest to that, and I feel if nothing else, this little COVID bump has made us more resilient this season. I’m excited for conference, I think everybody is really confident about it.
“We’re going to keep going. Conference has always been the end goal for the season, and I feel like we’ve stayed true to that. I think we can celebrate so far what we’ve done, because we haven’t had an undefeated season for a very long time, but at the same time, no season is complete without conference.”
Not even close. The final test is necessary, because the rest of it, while vital to the pursuit, was a build up for the championships.
The past two seasons, Colorado State has placed fifth in the conference chase. At each of those meets, every competitor entered as a scorer produced points for the team, the first time that had happened in coach Christopher Woodard’s now 11-year tenure.
Every part of what has happened to this point was designed to put the Rams in an even better spot, and while the record has been perfect, the training behind it has been filled with potholes.
The Moby Pool was shut down for a month with pump issues, pushing the team to the Glen Morris Fieldhouse pool, a 30-meter reminder of days gone by, a facility with no starting blocks and none of regular markers swimmers need.
None of it shook the team, but it has stirred their drive.
“I definitely feel confident. The first half of the season, we definitely had a lot of obstacles, like South College Pool and now we’ve been back in Moby for more than a month,” freshman Emily Chorpening said. “We’ve all been training very well, and as a team, I think we’ll do amazing.
“I’m really excited, but I’m also nervous and interested to see what comes with it. The difference between a big college meet and a big club meet, and I’m also excited to train as a team as a whole. It’s less individual and more about the team.”
Which is what all the success can be boiled down to, really. It required a complete change in approach and attitude. The seniors on hand had been part of the talk for years, the ideal of not waiting for things to happen but creating a change. Not accepting the results which came, but giving themselves a real chance to change them.
“But I feel we were very intentional with this season. A lot of that has to deal with COVID and how things are changing, but I definitely feel like we’ve been harder on our goals.”Anika Johnson
Captain Kristina Friedrichs was vocal about it all, about beating Wyoming (which the Rams did for the first time in 12 years) and taking the fight to the lanes each and every race. Not just front-end speed, but producing depth where everyone was fighting to the wall.
The record is great. How it became is more impressive to the members of the team.
“I think I’m more proud of the approach we took to get there. I feel like we went into the season and we felt like we were going to kill it from the start,” Johnson said. “We had a team meeting about it and our goals for the season, and we really laid it out beforehand. Getting there in the end, having it in mind from the beginning, was very rewarding.
“I feel like the first meet was very inspiring, and we just kept going after that. It was very exciting and motivating through each one. Each individual person is so important in that, in achieving all our goals. Everybody has held to their goals and remained committed to the team.”
It has required the buy-in from every segment of the team. Friedrichs, a four-time All-Mountain West selection, has been lowering her times in her final season. The freshman class made an immediate impact, not just with Gizzi, but distance freestyler Maya White posted the fastest times in the conference in both the 1,000 -and 1,650-yard freestyles. Chorpening’s name, as of that of Maisy Barbosa, also populates the top 10 times in the Mountain West this year in multiple events.
The juniors and sophomores have continued to build, as well. The midseason meet in Houston was a precursor of sorts for the championships, with the team somewhat rested and wearing tech suits. There, in another preliminaries-finals set up, there was an explosion of impressive swims.
The dual season was great. They want championship season to be even better, eyeing a move up in the final team results.
“As for our dual meets, we accomplished everything. We went undefeated and we all raced our hearts out and did what we needed to do to win,” Chorpening said. “For me, this is like the final cherry on top. I want to see what I really can do. I had a great midseason, and I want to do even better at conference and see what I’m capable of.
“I think the past meets we’ve had give us a bit of confidence and a cushion going into this, but this is definitely the main event of the season.”
The Mountain West Championships begin Wednesday with the 1-meter springboard preliminaries, with the finals of that event, as well as the 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays. The meet runs through Saturday, with the finals beginning each day at 5:30 p.m. MT. Swimming preliminaries begin at 10 a.m. the final three days; Thursday and Saturday, the prelims for the 3-meter and platform begin. Live results and streaming can be found on the Mountain West Championships page.
UNLV claimed the team title in 2021 its home pool, edging Nevada in the final race to unseat San Diego State as two-time defending conference champions. Those three teams were the only rosters to exceed 1,000 points in the meet, all finishing at 1,309 or better.
The second half of the season has presented the team with hiccups, to be certain. The training trip and two duals in California the first week of January were shelved due to COVID protocols on other teams. Those same circumstances erased the final scheduled dual of the season with Northern Colorado.
At least, Johnson said, they did get the meet with Air Force, the final win of the tally. It gave them a final chance to race, to break up the rigors of training and reassert a mindset which has been the spark for the entire season.
“Last year, a lot of things were left up to chance. If it happens it happens, and that’s good,” Johnson said. “But I feel we were very intentional with this season. A lot of that has to deal with COVID and how things are changing, but I definitely feel like we’ve been harder on our goals.”
Never lose sight.
Not now. Not with one major goal looming on the horizon.