Saying that the Ball State University women's swimming and diving team has a chance to win this week's Mid-American Conference championship would be a stretch at best. The four-day championship continues tonight with host Miami University looking to defend its title.
The Cardinals finished eighth out of eight teams at last year's championship, but that is not something that bothers coach Laura Seibold-Caudill.
"When you finish last, there's nowhere else to go but up," Seibold-Caudill said. "This team is much stronger than last year's team and I think our increased intensity at practice this year will be evident over the course of the meet."
Seibold-Caudill said her confidence in her team has continued to rise over the course of the season as Ball State took the University of Toledo, Ohio University and Michigan State University to the final event of each meet before coming up short.
"Even though we lost some close meets, they were meets that weren't even close last year, and I think that's proof of how far this team has come this year.," Siebold-Caudill said.
At last year's Championship, Ball State finished 17th or 18th in seven events. The top 16 places score points for the team. Ball State also placed ninth four times, with the top eight going on to the championship heat in each event.
Seibold-Caudill said that she thinks this team has the training to push themselves above and beyond the eighth place rut.
"We're an up and coming team in the MAC," Seibold-Caudill said. "I'm not saying that we're going to go and win it this year, but I will say that this is definitely not an eighth-place team anymore."
One disadvantage the Cardinals will not have to overcome this season is their swim suits.
Last season, then co-coaches Seibold-Caudill and Bob Thomas decided not to spend $10,000 for the team to have brand new "speed suits." The decision proved to be a wise investment for this season and the Federation Internationale de Natation (the international governing body for swimming), the NCAA and the MAC have all deemed these suits illegal because they increase the swimmers buoyancy, thus making them swim faster than they are naturally capable.
Another reason the Cardinals are a much improved team is a change in the intensity of training.
"At the beginning of the season, assistant coach Mike Kerr and I sat down and decided that our sole focus was on the MAC, not any other meet," Seibold-Caudill said. "Because of that, we did not taper in the middle and the season and we trained through every meet. By doing this, our girls are much faster and ready for MAC than last in past years."
Host Miami enters the meet the heavy favorite, having MAC-best times or scores in nine of the meet's 20 events and at least one swimmer or diver in the top three in every event.
In the swimming events, junior Maria Grammelspacher is Ball State highest ranked, at 16th in both the 100 yard and 200 yard butterfly. In diving, senior Lisa Maertin and sophomore Chrissy Riordan are ranked 11th and 12th in 1-meter diving and 15th and 16th in 3-meter.
Despite the low rankings for Ball State, Seibold-Caudill is not worried about that.
"Miami has a really, really fast pool and our girls have traditionally swam really well there," Seibold-Caudill said. "We've also done a lot of mental training and visualization exercises, so they will be ready to go."
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