Courtesy: Colorado State Athletics
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Back in action, which is exactly what Christopher Woodard feels his team needs.
Colorado State’s women’s swimming and diving program travels to the Metro Area on Saturday morning for a dual against the Denver Pioneers. The Rams have not competed since a dropping both ends of a double-dual with Air Force and Wyoming nearly six weeks ago.
The swimming competition is set to begin at 10 a.m., with the two diving events beginning at 2 p.m.
While Woodard knows most coaches lament the loss of training opportunities during the pandemic, it’s the racing he feels was the biggest setback.
“I think the hardest part for a lot of people was the consistency of missing practice — all summer long and potentially through the fall — but for me, it was more the loss of competition,” he said. “I think some kids start to get to that point where they lose a little bit of that drive for racing, and so having only one opportunity from last February until now, that’s a detriment. I’m grateful we have three meets scheduled right now, and knock on wood, they all happen. I think that’s a huge, huge help.”
This dual will be the start of three meets in the next month, with the next two weekends filled. The swimmers returned Monday to resume practice, which also makes Saturday very exploratory in nature. A few injuries will lead to some lineup tinkering, but Woodard is confident the next three meets will afford the opportunity to fill in spots and grant some younger swimmers the chance to shine.
“It’s hard to assess, just because most of them have been home for three weeks in different states with different protocols. The first couple of days here was just assessing where we are at in terms of our ability to train and our ability to race,” he said. “I think more than anything, this is only our second opportunity to race this year, so we really need to nail down details. We’re going to be preaching all week, where is your breath coming, how many kicks to the break, what’s the rate, throwing tempo trainers in. I’m hopeful we are able to execute events, even if our times don’t’ reflect that.”
That will make Saturday more about racing than the numbers on the scoreboard at the end of events.
The condensed season has altered the approach of what Woodard and his staff will value moving forward, as the program has always looked at three keys – attitude, effort and execution. With practice time lost to build fundamentals, the prior two categories will play a major role in how the team moves forward.
“I think in a normal year, when we go through our meets, execution weighs a lot heavier in to our factoring of who is going where. The assumption is, in a full season, attitude and effort are there for the most part, and if that falls off, then you don’t have execution,” Woodard said. “This year, I think we’re going to have to rely more on attitude and effort. If the attitude’s good and the effort is there, the execution may be a little bit off, but we’re going to have bank more on those factors for a future-grade performance than we will execution, because we won’t have enough to go on.”
The Pioneers will be coming off their first meet of the season Friday, hosting BYU. In the Rams initial outing, senior Jennae Frederick paced the effort with a victory in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing runner up in the 200 event. Swimmers Elsa Litteken, Kendra Preski, Kristina Friedrichs, as well as divers Rachel Holland and Katie Leonard, all posted top-three finishes in the meet.
Rams with Top 10 Mountain West Times
- 200 medley relay, 1:45.41
- Abbey Owenby, 1,000 freestyle, 10:34.23a
- 400 free relay, 3:32.80a
- Elsa Litteken, 100 backstroke, 56.75a
- Jennae Frederick, 100 butterfly, 56.91a
- Kristina Friedrichs, 50 freestyle, 23.61
- Jennae Frederick, 200 butterfly, 2:05.61a
- Kendra Preski, 1,000 freestyle, 10:37.50a
- Elsa Litteken, 100 butterfly, 57.04a
- Kendra Preski, 200 butterfly, 2:07.95a
*a — Altitude-adjusted time