Oct. 31, 2014

Live Video | Coach Novitsky Interview

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Fighting Illini swimming and diving team returns to action this weekend for their first double dual meet of the season following a two-week break. The Illini will take on in-state rivals Illinois State and Southern Illinois Saturday morning at 10 a.m. CT in Normal, Illinois.

“We had our full compliment of practices without missing anything with travel for meets so we got a lot of work in over the past couple weeks,” head coach Sue Novitsky said. “We talked about certain things as a team that we need to keep focusing on to improve and shore up our racing a little bit.”

The Illini are hoping for a winning result after dropping their season opener to Northwestern, 160-140. The Orange and Blue hold a commanding 24-7 all-time record against Illinois State, with Novitsky touting a 13-1 record against the Redbirds. Last season the Illini defeated the Redbirds by a staggering score of 206-94. Illinois also took down Southern Illinois in last year’s meeting, posting a score of 199.50-96.50. However, both rivals enter this year’s competition with unbeaten dual meet records.

“Both teams have some good freshmen coming in so they’re going to be challenging,” Novitsky said. “I expect some good head-to-head races.”

The Illini will look to receive a boost from their own talented freshmen Samantha Stratford and Gabrielle Bethke after their strong showing against Northwestern. The newcomers claimed two individual first-place finishes, two second-place finishes and contributed to the Illini’s two relay victories.

Senior Alison Meng will attempt to continue her run of early-season success after playing a role in four of the Illini’s first-place finishes in the Orange and Blue’s last meet. Meng posted a NCAA “B” cut time in the 100 back, claimed first-place in the 100 fly and swam a leg in both the winning 200 medley relay and 400 free relay.

“We are definitely a lot stronger than we have been in the past couple years,” Novitsky said. “We’re training at a pretty high level and a pretty consistent level. We’re still building up and we’ll keep doing that until the Big Ten Championships.”