Rams Set for Cougars in Home Debut

Calendar

Show:/

No Upcoming Events

FORT COLLINS – A little extra juice for the home debut isn't a terrible thing considering the opponent.

Colorado State's women's swimming and diving team will host Mountain West foe Washington State on Friday at Moby Pool (4 p.m.), a first look at the new member who will alter the conference championships. The meet will be live streamed through the Mountain West Network.

Coach Christopher Woodard loves being at home, but better yet, he likes having a strong challenge early on the slate.

"I don't want them cruising through the fall and then waiting to get into real-heated competition, because then their racing skills aren't top notch. It's good for us to see this," Woodard said. "I fully expect we'll get punched in the mouth once or twice, and we're going to counterpunch. It's good to understand the meet is not won in one race.

The Cougars won their first dual of the season, taking 13 of 14 races at home to beat Northern Colorado. The Cougars do not have divers, so those events will not be competed at the dual, though Colorado State's crew of four will hold the events as exhibition to continue their training and provide the natural breaks in a standard 16-event NCAA dual.

While it will be good to see in person what Washington State brings to the table, this dual is more about what the Rams need to focus on for Woodard.

"It's helpful for us to understand a bit better their personnel and what they can do, but I think in most cases we're treating this like any other dual meet where we're coming up against competition where we are relatively evenly matched," he said. "It could go either way depending on what team shows up for us and what team shows up for them. I like it when meets are this close because it's strategizing, it's deciding who has the edge where and how to plan for that."

Colorado State's first competition of the season was the Front Range Invitational at Air Force, with the 7,200 feet of elevation providing some mixed results for the Rams. For some of the team, the meet was a boost, for others it left some questions.

Woodard knows both sides of the coin can be well served in terms of goals with the right approach to a tightly contested dual.

"I think it gives them perspective and patience to understand, hey, if I swam this way good or bad at 7,200 feet but I'm coming back home and going through a different training cycle now, there's possibilities," he said. "We've been working a lot all week on how do we get out early on the race, how do we dictate tempo and also how are we closing races. It's going to be neck and neck, there's going to be touch-outs. We want to be on the right side of those touch-outs."

Rams in the Mountain West Top 10

1. Tess Whineray, 100 back, 55.24
2. Maya White, 1,650 free, 17:14.34
3. Tess Whineray, 200 back, 2:00.47
5. Maisy Barbosa, 400 IM, 4:27.15
6. Maya White, 200 fly, 2:05.28
7. Erin Dawson, 200 IM, 2:05.18
8. Maya White, 500 free, 5:01.65
10. Maya White, 400 IM, 4:30.93

Follow us at -- Twitter: @CSUSwimDive | Instagram: @csuswimdive | Facebook: @CSUSwimDive

- STALWART -

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Recent Results

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Maisy Barbosa

Erin Dawson

Tess Whineray

Maya White

Upcoming Events

Recent Results

Colorado State University Athletics