The women’s swimming and diving team will begin the ACC championships at the Koury Natatorium in Chapel Hill Wednesday at 7 p.m. The events will last until Feb. 17, while the men’s diving events will take place this Thursday and Friday.
Coach Brooks Teal said the regular season is preparation for the ACC championships. He added the team has approached this meet much differently than the regular season.
“Basically, through the rest of the season they were doing what we call swimming tired,” Teal said.
“Even though we would have an important dual meet on a Saturday, the more important thing was training hard all week long preparing for ACC’s — getting the work done that we needed to do to be the best we could be at the end of the year.”
Teal said N.C. State has had less strenuous practices to save some energy for the upcoming days.
“ACC’s is where they want to have their peak performance for the year so we’ve been gradually cutting back on their workload,” Teal said. “Most of them stopped lifting weights a week or two ago.”
Freshman swimmer Jessica Stewart said the physical preparation for the ACC championships has been different from anything she has ever experienced.
“I haven’t had a season like this in my entire life,” Stewart said. “I’ve been training six months for this meet. The longest I had ever trained for a meet before was two months.”
As important as the physical preparation is for the team, Teal has also stressed the importance of being mentally ready for such a big competition.
“We’ve been talking to them about this all along that they’ve got to realize that there is a lot of talent on this team, and there is no reason that they can’t step up and challenge anybody,” he said.
Senior Kerry Whitson said it’s important for the Wolfpack to keep thinking positive during preparation for the ACC’s.
“Mentally, I’ve just kept the positives coming in,” Whitson said. “I haven’t really thought about anything bad. I just try to remember everything positive that I did over the year like all the training and all the good swims I had in meets.”
Teal said one of the main strengths of the team is the combination of the youth with the team’s fifteen freshmen along with the leadership of the upperclassmen.
“The youthful spirit and enthusiasm of the freshmen is great,” Teal said. “Freshmen make up half our team. That spark is always fun to have. Also, a strength for us is the experience and leadership from our upperclassmen blended with the talent and youth that we have.”
Stewart said the unity of the team has been a strength.
“Just being a team is great,” Stewart said. “In high school, my team didn’t really depend on me. Now my team depends on me.”