WSU swimming takes on No. 2 Stanford

The WSU women’s swimming team will compete against Stanford University at the Avery Aquatic Center in Stanford, California today.

This will be WSU’s second swim meet this season. During their first swim meet, the Cougs lost against the University of Southern California in Pullman.

Senior freestyle Haley Rose Love says that the whole team is looking forward for this meet.

“I think we’re really excited to see where we are compared to three weeks ago against USC. We’ve all trained super hard, we’ve had practices back to back and I think we are a little bit more prepared. I think all of us are just excited for our first big travel meet,” Love said.

During this upcoming swim meet, the pool will be set outdoors. Usually, the Cougs swim indoors in Pullman, but during summer training, they practice outside.

“That’s going to be an advantage to us,” senior butterfly Elise Locke said. “I think that we’re going to enjoy it a lot more since its outdoors, so it might even be better for us.”

Because the meet will be outside, the backstrokers may have difficulty adapting to the conditions.

According to Locke, the backstrokers usually use the ceiling as a reference point in order for them to stay in their lane. But when there is no ceiling to look at, they may have trouble swimming straight.

“You got to use your peripherals a lot more to stay in-between your lanes,” Locke said.

Both Love and Locke plan on gaining more experience from this meet and think it will be a good learning experience for the freshmen.

“I think it’s really good for the freshmen to experience this right off the bat,” Love said. “So when we go into other meets, they will know how to act and compose themselves since they’ve gone against one of the best teams in the country.”

It should be noted that two swimmers on the Stanford women’s swimming team have won multiple medals in last summer’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Junior freestyle Simone Manuel won gold in the 100-meter freestyle and 400-meter medley relay. She also won two silver medals, one for the 50-meter freestyle and the other for the 400-meter freestyle relay.

Freshman freestyle Katie Ledecky won four gold medals: one for the 800-meter freestyle, one for the 400-meter freestyle, another for the 200-meter freestyle, and one more in the 800-meter freestyle relay. She also won a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay. Both swimmers swam for Team USA.

Locke says she is really looking forward to swimming against two Olympic gold medalists. She describes it as an honor being able to swim in the same pool with them.

The meet will start at 2 p.m. and will be live-streamed through Pac-12 Networks. The Cougs will next face the University of California, Berkeley at Spieker Aquatics Complex in Berkeley California tomorrow at 4 p.m. Live updates can be found on calbears.com.