With the Horizon League Swimming and Diving Championships starting this morning, Wright State head coach Kyle Oaks and his squads are hoping that all of their preparation and hard work will result in a successful outcome.
With their last meet against fourth-ranked Ohio State at the beginning of the month, it has been over two weeks since WSU last competed.
That time off has been valuable for Oaks and his team, as they have used that time for preparing for the Championships.
“When we are in season, we are normally doing about nine practices a week if we don’t have a meet,” Oaks said. “So one thing we do is we start cutting out those 5:40 a.m. practices. Getting sleep and letting your body recover a little bit is really important.”
A lot of time has been put into the Raiders training, and at this point of the season it becomes vital that the team maintains what they have worked hard for all season up until this point.
“The work has been done and if you don’t have it by now then you’re not going too,” said Oaks. “A lot of it is you want to put a lot of that hard work in during the year and then we (coaches) monitor to see that they are progressing and becoming more physically capable as the season goes on and we just start to make sure it is really good quality.”
With the Horizon League Championships being the biggest competitive platform of the season, Oaks has focused on stressing the importance of being just as mentally tough as physically tough.
“You get everybody at their best. It’s not just a dual meet where you’ve got your team and one other team. Now everybody is there and it is just so much bigger,” said Oaks. “Our goal going into all of these meets is to swim fast and at our best. If we can focus on that and not let how others around us compete affect how we swim and just focus on ourselves, then we will put ourselves in a position that we can best compete.”
The Horizon League Swimming and Diving Championships began today at 8 a.m. will conclude Saturday.
