JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman swim teams are looking to get the 2015 calendar year off right this weekend in the Sunshine State as they face the Mount Union Purple Raiders in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
For most of the Carson-Newman swim team, they have not swam in a competitive race for over six weeks. Due to finals and Christmas break, the last time the Eagles hit the water as a team was November 21st through 23rd in Charlotte, N.C. at the Fall Frenzy.
That weekend is well-documented in the Eagles' record books, but for coach Paige McCord, now is the time to get her team ready for the Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships next month in back in Charlotte.
"We've come back from the Fall Frenzy and entered into a season we call hardening. This is a critical phase for every swim program, most specifically the way I run my program here," McCord said of the work her team has been doing in the break between meets. "Our athletes have been very successful, but this is a time period where they have been pushed both mentally and physically in every aspect and that will continue through the New Year. This sets us up for our conference championship goals in early February."
The time off has been an opportunity to get the Carson-Newman student-athletes healthy and rested along with the hardening aspect of training. But what exactly does hardening entail?
"We have been training in and out of the water, a lot of race pace, doing a lot of aerobic, a lot of anaerobic work, really starting to get in top space and our athletes are doing very well," McCord said.
For the second time in the two-year program history, the Eagles will head down Interstate-75 for a meet in Florida. Last season, Carson-Newman swam in a quad-meet in Pensacola against West Florida, Queens and Darton State. This year, it will be a duel meet against Mount Union, a Division-III school located in Alliance, Ohio.
Saturday's meet will be an opportunity for McCord to see which of her swimmers fills the best roles moving towards February's conference's meet.
"Out of the athletes, I'm looking for experience. Now we are halfway through our season, we are going to really zoning in on what our individual events are," McCord said. "For example, at conference, we get three events, so we are going to really close to making sure that those athletes are swimming those specific events as close as possible the best they would line up for us at conference, which means it might not be everybody's individual best event, but for the team is best.
At this level, we are a team sport. That's the biggest thing is to get them some experience in some of those events, but also, if it is an event they have done well in the past, for them to continue to step up and show their dominance in that area."
McCord and her Eagles are just anxious and excited to be able to get out and swim after the long break off.
"I think it is going to be a wonderful meet for us. I think we are going to get in there and race hard. Both programs are at the same point in their training. It will just be a toughness battle. We are looking forward to it."
The meet will take place at the Cocoa Beach Aquatic Center in Cocoa Beach, Florida at 5 p.m. The address for the center is 5000 Tom Warriner Blvd, Cocoa Beach, FL 32931. Follow along on Twitter at @cnathletics and on cneagles.com for results throughout Saturday's meet.
-CN-
