By Katie Miles
Arizona Daily Wilcat
The UA swimming teams seem to be having one of their best seasons in a long time.
Both teams have appeared unstoppable as of late Ä the women's team won its first Pacific 10 Conference meet in six years just a few weeks ago and the men pulled out an impressive win over No. 12 Florida.
The question remains: what is next for this dynamic team?
The Wildcats take on New Mexico State this afternoon at 2 p.m. and Loyola Marymount tomorrow at 1 p.m. The meets will be held at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center.
"This has been a pretty good season so far," said Coach Frank Busch. "We have the largest team in the school's history that is going to the NCAAs. This meet is not going to be putting any pressure on us."
Neither New Mexico State nor Loyola Marymount are as experienced as the Wildcats, so Busch is going into the meet with a particular gameplan.
"What we are setting out to do this weekend is to try different people in different events," Busch said. "We plan to have various swimmers concentrate on their third-strongest event instead of putting them into their first- or second-best event. By doing this, we are hoping to make the team stronger in time for the Pac-10 championships.
"Since both of these teams are young, but not strong or experienced, we are going into the meet with an upper hand."
In Busch's opinion, New Mexico will be the tougher competition. Both the UA men's and women's teams beat New Mexico back in November.
The Wildcats will be looking for good individual performances as well as a solid performance as a team. Some swimmers expected to finish well are Pac-10 champion Chad Carvin, sophomore Abe Wick, transfer student Oliver Lampe and freshman Trever Grey.
The women's team will be led by senior captain Liz Scholzen, junior Becky Gumpert and freshman standouts Laurie Kline and Heather Branstetter.
The UA diving team will be in action this weekend as well. Junior Andre Sabbah, one of the Wildcats' leading divers, has made the NCAA zone qualifying standards with his performance in Texas in January. Marni DeRyckere will be leading the women's diving team this weekend. The junior accomplished NCAA zone qualifying standards on both the one- and three-meter events.
As of January, the Wildcats have recorded four of the top 10 times in the nation. The Wildcats enter this meet with a 2-4 record.