Land or water, sand or concrete, home or away, the Bobcats just keep hurdling obstacles.
After taking a 12-day trip to Florida during the student-athletes’ winter break, coach Derick Roe and the Bobcats had a chance to rejuvenate and refocus before beginning the second half of the season.
“I thought the training was great,” Roe said. “ It was wonderful for the entire team to get down there and enjoy the nice weather. We did a lot of hard training down there, but the hardest (training) is definitely behind them.”
Sophomore Addison Ferguson and her teammates were allowed to practice more than the NCAA-regulated rule of 20 hours per week with multiple training sessions per day.
“When school is in session we are only allowed twenty hours of practice each week,” Roe said. “But down there we got to do a lot more training and really got to improve our moral.”
Ferguson added that the Bobcats’ training on the beach was not only a way to maintain their in-season shape, but also a way to remain sharp mentally.
“I think we got much more mentally stronger,” Ferguson said. “We weren’t swimming in the same pool, so I think we got much stronger mentally and physically.”
During their trip, the women trained on land and in the water with parachutes, in addition to working on swimming techniques. The final six days of the trip consisted of the team training individually on its own personal performance goals.
“We did lifting and beach running, which was tough, almost every day,” Ferguson said. “We would have morning practice, then have a break, then beach running and finish with individual work.”
The trip allowed for a significant amount of bonding and down time for the team, as swimmers roomed in groups of four.
“We, as a team, are really close,” Ferguson said. “We all got really close over the break and we’re all really trying to achieve our specific goals. We’re just moving on from what happened earlier in the season, and we know what we can and have to do.”
However, fatigue has set in for the swimmers facing a quick turn around before defeating Denison this past Saturday, which was just two days after they returned to Athens.
“(The swimmers) are definitely tired,” Roe said. “I’m excited to see if it pays off two weeks from now, but after the (Denison) meet I told the girls the worst of their training is behind them. That is the hardest training they’re going to do all season.”
Time will tell if the training was valuable for the ladies, as Roe expects the training to show results later in the season during the Mid-American Conference Championships.
“From here on out, were just going to push towards the MAC meet,” he said. “All the extra noise, extra stuff is going to be blocked out. A hundred percent focus from here on out.”
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