Women’s swimming: Undefeated Ohio State travels to face conference foes in Ann Arbor

Fallon Perl
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 04:50:18 +0000
Sports, Swimming & Diving, ohio state women's swimming

After their successful victory over the Spartans last Friday, the Ohio State women’s swimming team is anxious to take their talents back up north to try their luck against Michigan.

During their trip to Ann Arbor, the Buckeyes are looking to remain undefeated in dual meets, but their focus specifically appears to be on improvement and progression both individually and as a team, rather than the outcome of the competition.

“We’re concentrating on fighting from the beginning, not waiting for it to happen … and knowing that it’s going to be a dogfight from the get-go,” senior Lindsey Clary said.

The Buckeyes, as a whole, understand the challenge Michigan presents. Wolverine Siobhan Haughey has the third fastest time this year in the 200 freestyle, behind 2016 Olympians Simone Manuel and Katie Ledecky. Michigan’s Gillian Ryan and Yirong Bi rank third and fourth fastest in the 500 freestyle. In order to capture a victory over Michigan, OSU believes that it starts with confidence in the team.

“We’ve been working a lot on trusting each other as a team,” senior Taylor Vargo said. “It’s about going out and knowing that you’re going to give your team the best chance, or the best swim you can give that day.”

Clary and Vargo have had their fair share of meets against Michigan, and said they’re looking forward to competing against their rivals in one final dual meet. What they are more excited for, however, is for the freshman to finally get a taste of this level of competition.

“The freshmen have never swam (against) this team. I’m sure they have seen stuff about the rivalry, but they haven’t been there, they haven’t been at that meet to see what it’s like,” Clary said. “We’re ready to go, we know what it’s like. We’re anxious. We want to race them, but we’re also trying to show the freshmen what to expect and not to be nervous, but to have fun.”

Though they are anxious to compete against their rivals, it should be exciting to see the matchups between the Wolverines’ top swimmers and the Buckeyes’ top swimmers, Vargo said.

“We’re going to give it our all and hopefully the freshmen have a ton of fun and see what the rivalry is all about,” Clary said.

The competition is set for Friday at 6:00 p.m. in Ann Arbor.