Friday Meet Schedule | Saturday Meet Schedule
FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- The Alaska Nanooks swim team will be back in action this weekend, as they'll host Biola University in Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference action. The Nanooks will open the two-meet weekend on Friday at 6 p.m. before concluding with a 12 p.m. meet on Saturday. Both meets will be held at the Patty Center Pool.
It has been nearly two weeks since the Nanooks (1-1) have competed in the pool, as they've enjoyed several days of training after a season-opening split with Azusa Pacific back on Oct. 16 and 17. Alaska was able to pick up a 109-96 over the Cougars on Oct. 16, but was unable to complete the sweep, as they fell 106-98 to APU in the Saturday meet.
Head coach Scott Lemley has continued to up the physical conditioning of his team since the last meet, and believes that his swimmers will be able to build off of their performances in the season-opening weekend.
"We've hit the anaerobic phase of our season," explains Lemley. "We should be much more powerful in this meet. Aerobically we will be a little more fit, simply because we are further into our season."
With the overall enhanced fitness of his team, Lemley expects to see improvements in the shorter distance events this weekend. The head man also added that because his team is in the anaerobic phase of the season, he expects his swimmers grow stronger in the distance events.
Biola will provide a stiff challenge for the Nanook swimmers. The Eagles are an NAIA level opponent, and they bring a team to Fairbanks that has already had several swimmers hit NAIA National Championships standards.
"They're a really good NAIA team," said Lemley. "We've scouted them, looked at their times, and they are going to be very competitive. We may have the edge this weekend. We have some swimmers that are capable of finishing first in several events, but Biola has the talent to place second or third in a lot of events, so it will be a competitive meet."
In the Azusa meet, Alaska got strong outings from their All-Americans in Victoria Adams, Martha Hood, Nga Nguyen and Katie Stark. In addition to the All-American quartet, the Nanooks got spectacular performances from a pair of swimmers who were making their Alaska debut in freshman Cassidy Heaton and sophomore transfer Kate Mathews.Â
Heaton was able to crack into the program's Top-10 performance list in the 1,650-yard free style with a time of 17:59.09, while Mathews earned CollegeSwimming.com's NCAA Division II Swimmer of the Week after picking up a trio of victories against the Cougars.
"Cassidy and Kate gained a lot of confidence against Azusa, and we expect them to be standouts again this weekend. Cassidy is a freshman and she is new to our intense training, but she has been responding well. For Kate, she is a little more use to the rigors of our training coming from a Division I program. We expect Kate to do well in the 100 and 200 breast will be her best two events this weekend."
Both meets will be stream live on Alaska's Stretch Internet portal. To view the events, click here.
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks swim team, follow @NanooksSwim on Twitter or like Alaska Nanooks Swimming on Facebook.
