After a three-week break from competition following a victory over Northern Arizona, the WSU swim team returns to non-conference action this weekend.

Despite the lengthy hiatus, senior Haley Anderson said the team has been preparing as if they were getting ready for the Pac-12 Championships in February.

“We’re really excited to race again,” Anderson said. “We want to break more records, and be highly competitive against some of the top teams.”

The Cougars (3-3, 1-3 in Pac-12) will travel to Iowa City for the annual Hawkeye Invitational this weekend. The team accumulated 387.5 points and finished sixth in the event last season, led by a record-setting first day of competition including a school-record finish in the 200-meter freestyle relay.

The team will compete against the Iowa, Denver, Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Iowa City. Head coach Tom Jager said the team is ready for the challenge that comes with competing against schools outside of the Pac-12 conference.

“It’ll be a good competition for us to see how far we’ve gotten in the last four years,” Jager said in an interview with wsucougars.com. “It’s fun for us to go back there and swim teams that we don’t generally swim against.”

The Iowa Hawkeyes (1-1, 1-1 in Big-Ten) began their season on the road against conference foes Michigan State and Minnesota. The Hawkeyes defeated Michigan State 196-103, before falling to Minnesota two weeks later by a score of 195-105.

The team is led by sophomore Emma Sougstad, who is ranked in the Top-50 swimmers worldwide after an impressive performance in the 2014 Phillips 66 National Championships in Irvine, CA. Sougstad was also named the Big-Ten Swimmer of the Week in early November, according to the team’s website.

The undefeated Denver Pioneers (4-0) have gotten off to a great start this season, defeating opponents by an average of 76 points per meet. They will enter the meet after a four-week break from competition.

Denver is led by freshman Maddie Myers, who holds five top times for the Pioneers. The team ranks No. 39 in the College Swimming Coaches Association of America Coaches Poll, according to the team’s website.

The Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers (3-2, 0-1 in Horizon League) have won three meets in a row after starting the season with back-to-back losses and have accumulated 508 points during that streak.

UWM will compete in the Hawkeye Invitational for the fifth straight season. The team is led by sophomore Natalie Johnson, who holds top three times in seven different events for the Panthers this season, according to the team’s website.

Coach Jager said the team is eager to get back in the pool after the long break.

“We want to win the dang meet,” Jager said. “When we get time off, we get anxious and want to swim fast. We have a great opportunity to prove how far we’ve come.”

Assistant coach Adriana Quirke said while the team hopes to achieve more record times, the team wants to win now more than ever.

“Our team has a bunch of individual goals, and if we win we’ll take care of all of those things in the process,” Quirke said.

The Hawkeye Invitational is the last time the Cougars compete until Jan. 23 when they will travel to Corvallis to take on Oregon State. The meet starts today with prelims beginning at 8 a.m. PST and lasts through the weekend until Sunday.