Hoosiers take to the road in Miami, Texas invitationals

After resting for a couple days over the Thanksgiving break, the IU men's swimming and diving team is back in the pool preparing for the Texas Invitational and the Miami (OH) Invitational this weekend Dec. 5-7. The top 11 Hoosiers will be heading to Texas while the remainder of the squad and the diving team will be heading to Miami (OH).\n"Everyone's goal is to get the best times so far this season at both meets since we have had time to rest," junior Adam Goff said. \nThe 5-0 Hoosiers (3-0 in the Big Ten) were last victorious right before break when they hosted four other teams at the Indiana Invitational at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center. At the Indiana Invite, the Hoosiers beat out second place team University of Cincinnati by a score of 1,149-968 points. But both the Texas and Miami Invitationals will be more competitive for IU. \nAt the Texas Invitational, the Hoosiers will face many ranked opponents which will give them a taste of the competition that will be at NCAA Championships including No. 3 Texas, No. 5 Cal-Berkley, No. 6 USC, No. 11 Arizona State, No. 13 Wisconsin, No. 15 Arizona, No. 22 Harvard, and No. 24 Hawaii. The Miami Invitational will allow the Hoosiers to match up against Cincinnati again, as well as many other competitive squads. \n"The Texas meet will be very competitive, and Miami will have good teams," swimming coach Ray Looze said. "Both of the meets will be much more challenging (than the Indiana Invitational)." \nBecause these two meets will be more challenging, the Hoosiers will swim mainly their top events, and not as many "off" events. The strong sprinting contingent of juniors Claes Andersson, Dale Ramsy, Mike Payne and sophomore Nicolas Burgess will be looked at to lead the team in Texas. The foursome went one, two, four, and seven in the finals of the 50-yard freestyle at the Indiana Invitational and hope to place in the top eight at the Texas Invite. \n"We want to do as well as what we can do," Payne said. "We want to go in and do our job." \nThe diving team has been preparing for the Miami Invitational as well by resting some last week and training hard especially on platform this week. \n"We are doing a little bit more on platform this week," diving coach Jeff Huber said. "That is one of our tougher events so hopefully we will be prepared for this meet." \nHuber said he hopes his team will compete well in all three events including the one-meter, three-meter, and platform. Huber also said that he believes if his team dives up to their potential, they could win all three events.