After having a swimmer named the CCIW swimmer of the week and finishing in the middle of the pack for the Grinnell Invitational, the Augustana men’s and women’s swimming teams look ahead toward their final dual meet of the season against Monmouth and the CCIW championship.
The Monmouth dual meet will be on Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. And, the CCIW championships will take place on Feb. 12 and 13 starting at 10:30 a.m. both days in Kenosha, Wis.
For first year head coach Dan Lloyd, the Monmouth meet will not produce the best times, because he wants their best performances at the CCIW championship.
“We are not wanting to peak at Monmouth, we are wanting to peak at the CCIW championships,” said Lloyd. “Unfortunately with swimming you just can’t peak every single week.”
The teams will be in the middle of a taper, which is a term in swimming that is a balance of rest and conditioning, which ends muscles being broken down and retains the endurance aspect of swimming, as well.
The aspect of the swimmers performances that Lloyd will be analyzing in the Monmouth meet is technical ability.
“We need to make sure we are technically sound in the way we race,” said Lloyd. “We are not really looking for best times at that point, because our kids will be in the middle of their taper.”
Both the men’s and women’s swimming programs finished fourth in the CCIW championships last year under a different head coach. Lloyd believes that the results for this year’s championship will vary from last.
“The CCIW championship is going to be extremely competitive this year; there will be some turnover in what teams become the new champions,” said Lloyd.  “The interesting part for us is that in the CCIW, nobody really knows what to expect from us…and to everybody else in the conference, that is really dangerous.”
Lloyd believes that at the conference meet, most of the first-year swimmers will perform better than expected. He noted that some of the swimmers he thinks could do well are Kristin Schoenecker, Nicole Olsen, and Sara Hovren for the women. For the men, Lloyd expects Chris Wilson, Jake Speechly, and Miguel Rodriguez to perform well.
“As a whole, our freshmen class is pretty exciting because of the fact that there is a lot of talent there,” said Lloyd.  “Freshmen usually swim so well and because there is no expectations on them and as a result, you don’t know what you will get, and we have such talented freshmen.”
Sophomore Ian Disteldorf was just named CCIW swimmer of the week after he had two first place finishes individually and a second place finish individually at the Monmouth invite. Augustana also had three relay victories, all of which he swam in, which Lloyd has recognized.
“He has swum spectacularly all year, and I think as the season has gone on, his confidence has gone up,” said Lloyd.  “What happened this last weekend was his most complete performance because he not only won and placed in the individual events he was in, but placed in the relay events, too.”