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Water Dawgs wrap up fall, prepare for spring

Saluki men and women defeat big-name teams

With their fall seasons complete, the SIU men's and women's swimming and diving teams have time to reflect and prepare for the spring.

Both teams came up with strong finishes in events featuring numerous big-name schools prior to Thanksgiving.

The men finished fourth in the Purdue Invitational Nov. 23, just 33.5 points behind third-place Iowa and ahead of Wyoming and Ohio State, among others.

Men's head coach Rick Walker spoke of the significantly bigger budgets afforded the bigger-name schools, but he's proud that his team was able to hold its own on the strength of its work ethic.

"Here we are, kind of a blue collar program and just working our heinies off trying to make things work and it's coming together," Walker said.

The Saluki men defeated Lincoln College, Drury, last year's Division II national champions, and Missouri earlier in the fall.

The Saluki women also wrapped up their fall season in the pool of a Big 10 foe, finishing third and defeating Ohio State. During that meet, five Salukis made the SIU list of all-time school-best times.

"Our last meet was tremendous. We had great times," women's head coach Jeff Goelz said. "We beat Ohio State, which is a pretty big win and had a lot of lifetime bests. "We're definitely going in the right direction."

The women's team defeated Drury and Lincoln College in other fall action in addition to falling at Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa State.

Both the men's and women's teams will head to Puerto Rico during the upcoming break as part of a training trip.

Several other college programs will also be there and will train with the Salukis.

"It's great training," Goelz said. "It's a good chance to get outdoors. It's warm. It's long course training. There's no school or any classes to worry about, so the kids basically get up and swim and suntan and lift some weights and suntan and swim again.

"It's good because they can really focus on taking care of their business in the water."

Both teams begin the spring season in early January with the conference championships taking place in Carbondale in February.

"Western Kentucky, I think, will be the team to beat and then I think it will be Southwest and ourselves that are really kind of hammering it out to either knock Western Kentucky off or take second place," Walker said of the men's field.

Goelz and the women's team are also hoping to improve for the conference championships.

"We've got some good competitions coming up," Goelz said, "and hoping to get obviously some big swims in, hopefully a couple more wins here and there."