Jager ready for Pac-12 Championship
The WSU swim team will compete in the Pac-12 Campionships from Wednesday to Saturday in Federal Way.
February 21, 2017
Riding a four-meet winning streak, the WSU swim team heads to Federal Way on Wednesday to compete in the Pac-12 Championships, ready to face some of the nation’s stiffest competition.
The Cougars (4-3, 3-3) have enjoyed their best season in recent memory, recording their first win over a ranked UCLA team in program history and carrying the momentum from the fall into the spring. WSU followed up the win over the Bruins with a 170-87 victory over Oregon State on Jan. 20 and most recently defeated Utah 151-111 at home on Feb. 11.
“I’m proud of my athletes,” WSU Head Coach Tom Jager said. “They finished out strong, and they’re going to continue to finish strong.
The team’s swimmers are dealing with an 11-day layoff between competition as Wednesday approaches, to which Jager said the best way to stay ready is to be “cool and confident.”
Although the Cougars have had long breaks between meets, the team constantly stayed in the water throughout the year. But WSU has used this 11-day period before the meet to taper its training and rest.
Jager said his swimmers must “be ready and prepared to swim” entering a meet featuring some of the nation’s best teams.
The Pac-12 has five teams ranked in the top-25, most notably No. 1 Stanford and No.2 California. Stanford is led by Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky and is coming off a dual meet victory over the Golden Bears. Jager called the competition the Cougars will face at the meet, “the best in the world.”
“I think my athletes want to be at conference, they want to swim well,” Jager said.
Jager, a former Pac-10 swimmer of the year and two-time Olympic gold medalist, said he’s proud to coach in the Pac-12 and excited to take the most successful team of his six-year tenure into the championships.
“We trained hard, now we are sharpening all of our tools in order to go into combat,” Jager said.
The Pac-12 Championships run Wednesday to Saturday and will broadcast on the Pac-12 Network. Preliminary events take place in the morning of each day, and the finals of each event will follow in the evening.
