No. 15 Hoosiers head to Northwestern

The No. 15 IU women's swimming and diving team will head to Evanston, Ill., at 4 p.m. Friday to battle the Northwestern Wildcats in hopes of winning its final dual meet of the semester. \nThe Hoosiers (4-2) will hit the road for the first time since beating Minnesota in enemy territory Oct. 29. \nSenior Lauren Torpey said the pairing of IU and Northwestern is an "unspoken rivalry" because Jimmy Tierney, Northwestern's head coach, is IU head coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker's brother.\n"Northwestern always comes prepared," Torpey said. "They have a lot of depth and talent, like us. I think we're comparable teams."\nIU head coach Ray Looze has been in charge of guiding the Hoosiers through the painful process of transitioning from indulgence during Thanksgiving feasts to swimming laps in the pool. \n"We're getting them back in the swing of things, back into training mode," Looze said.\nFreshman Kristy Winck stressed the utility of training in order to leave Evanston victorious. \n"We've been upping the yardage a lot and focusing on training hard and training well so we can perform well and taper by the end of the year," Winck said. "I think doing really well against Northwestern will give us a lot of positive attitude going into the Big Tens. I think we'll do well since we're all behind each other and we have such good teamwork."\nTorpey admits she must continue to exert herself in order to reach her personal goals, such as securing an A-cut qualifying time to make the NCAA tournament.\n"This is the point of the season where if you work hard, it will pay off at the end of the year," Torpey said.\nThe team also made a different type of change recently, naming senior Lisa Silvestri as diving team captain. A unanimous oral vote by her teammates acknowledged the need for her senior leadership. \n"Because I transferred from Penn State, this is only my second year as a Hoosier," Silvestri said. "So it was nice to see (my teammates) respect me enough to lead the team."\nSilvestri said the team isn't too concerned with this weekend's matchup. \n"There's no one we can't handle," she said.\nLooze commented that Northwestern boasts a respectable amount of depth led by an exceptional freestyle swimmer, but IU should be ready to compete.\n"We should be able to exploit their weaknesses and neutralize their strengths," he said. "I think we have a lineup that's going to surprise them"