Oct. 16, 2009

Junior Jenna Newsome is in her third season with the Wildcats. Newsome helps comprise a fierce collection of sprint freestylers. The junior has appeared in the SEC Championships in each of her two seasons and ranks among UK’s all-time performers in both the 50- and 100-freestyle.

January 14, 2010

It’s crazy how fast the season has been going. Taper in the pool is coming really quickly for the middle distance group, and the sprinters have already started. In the weight room, we started taper this week. We only have three dual meets left, and SECs will be here before we know it. The three dual meets left are all very important. The first one is against our in-conference rival Alabama, and the next one is against Louisville. The Louisville meet always showcases an intense rivalry, and everyone always swims really fast. Cincinnati comes to Lexington for Senior Day on Jan. 30th, and I have no doubts that the seniors will be fired up for this meet and want to go out with a bang. This meet is also our promotional meet, so we are expecting a big crowd.

We got back from a training trip in Ft. Pierce, Fla., on Saturday night. Despite the uncharacteristic extremely cold temperatures of Florida, we managed to get in some very good quality practices and made the best of it. I have never seen some of my teammates run faster than they did once they jumped out of the water to sprint to the locker room. Everyone left the trip feeling really good about the practices we completed in the week that we were there. On our last day there we went to Andretti Thrill Park and had a blast. We felt like kids all over again, and the coaches did too. The employees there warned us beforehand that if we were reckless in our cars that we would get punches on our wristband. After three punches, we would be kicked out. The best part was that our head coach, Gary Conelly, received one for reckless driving! Of course no girl received one.

Only around five more weeks until SECs! The team is definitely anticipating this meet, and I have no doubts that we will be ready for it when the week arrives. However, we must stay focused with school and maintain the great focus we have with swimming now. Let’s go CATS!!

October 16, 2009

It seems my junior year is already flying by. We had a really good month or so of dryland training. It was very intense, but it put the team in extremely good shape. Training in the pool is in full swing, and we will be starting doubles shortly. The sprint, middle distance, and distance groups split off this week. Up until this week, we were all completing the same practice together.

We have had three strong recruiting weekends. Recruiting is such an important part of the season.

We already have our second meet this weekend against Arkansas for the women, and the men take on SIU and the University of the Cumberlands. I was particularly impressed with how the team swam against South Carolina this past Friday. Many of the times posted by the women’s and men’s teams were in-season bests, which is a great feat for this early in the season. Judging by the results we had against South Carolina, we are way ahead of where we were last season at this time.

The team has come together really fast this year considering the large freshman class of men. The freshmen will have a huge impact on how well we do this season.

It should be a great showdown in the pool on Saturday! GO CATS!!!