Jan. 25, 2006
COLUMBIA, Mo. - With three dual wins under its belt this season, the Missouri men's swimming and diving team (3-0, 1-0 Big 12) will head to Notre Dame, Ind., this weekend to compete in the Shamrock Invite, and, at the same time, more than double their number of dual decisions on the year. This is possible because, despite the fact that the meet will be held with an invite format, the scoring will pit the Tigers in dual meets with No. 19 Notre Dame, No. 21 Penn State, Louisville and Oakland.
"This is certainly our biggest challenge of the dual season," Mizzou head coach Brian Hoffer said. "The fact that Notre Dame and Penn State are ranked speaks for itself, and Louisville and Oakland are both strong programs. There will be some really good matchups in this meet, and it'll be a great opportunity to compare ourselves with other strong programs."
The meet will consist of three sessions, held over a period of two days in the Rolfs Aquatic Center on the Notre Dame campus. The action will commence Friday evening at 4 p.m. CT and will resume on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. CT. Each swimmer will be eligible to swim eight times over the two-day span.
"Our guys are going to swim a lot this weekend," Hoffer said. "We want to look at how they can handle that. It'll certainly be a reflection of where our conditioning is right now. We're looking for three good sessions where we go out and race the person next to us."
The only one of the quartet of this weekend's opponents that the Tigers have faced recently is Penn State, dropping a close decision last year in a triangular in Iowa City, Iowa. A furious Mizzou rally sent the meet down to the final relay, but the Tigers were tapped out by .04 in the 400 free relay to come away with the narrow defeat.
The Tigers' 3-0 start on the season, which included the team's first-ever dual win over Texas A&M, is their best since beginning the 1998-99 season with four consecutive dual wins. This weekend, however, the team won't be focused just on wins.
"We don't want to go out and lose, but it's almost impossible to gameplan for four simultaneous dual meets," Hoffer said. "We want to race and compete well. We're pretty confident heading in, but we know we have to have three good sessions in order to have a good meet."
This weekend is the third of four straight weekends in which the Tiger men will swim a dual on the road. They will conclude their dual season on Feb. 3 when they take on Drury in Springfield, Mo.