ISU swimmers and divers split ways for winter training, but have been reunited for the remainder of the 2013-2014 season.

Both swimmers and divers said the teams are a lot closer now because they got to spend so much time together. They also said it was a great learning experience.

“Mentally it prepared us,” said senior diver Jessica Henderson. “It helped us figure out what worked for us and what didn’t. And, especially for me, I felt like I learned a little bit more from that meet, which is going to prepare me for conference and zones.”

The divers traveled to Athens, Ga. for training, which included the Georgia Diving Invitational, while the swimmers went to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for their training.

During training they worked on staying calm throughout meets, learning new dives and long competition scenarios where they wait a large amount of time between dives.

The swimmers have not competed in a meet since Dec. 13 when they fell to Iowa 165-135, but the team doesn’t feel the month-long drought from competition will affect their upcoming performance against Illinois on Friday.

According to the swimmers, the focus of training was swimming a lot of yards and working on endurance in order to help push through the tough parts of races.

“We had a few race pace events down in Florida to get us ready,” said senior Alex Gustafson. “When it’s meet time, it’s meet time for us. I don’t think we’ll have a problem at all. This year has really been about making it the best year in Iowa State history.”

ISU coach Duane Sorenson said the team might be a little rusty to start the meet, but stated that because of the quality sets and simulated meet the team performed during training, the team should be good to go against Illinois.

After the Illinois meet, swimmers and divers will finish the season with three meets before the Big 12 Championship.

“This is really what the swimmers and divers go for is the last couple of meets of the year,” Sorenson said. “We just want to go out there and swim to the best of our ability, and dive to the best of our ability.”

The diving team has two divers who have qualified for the zone meet, Henderson and sophomore Elyse Brouillette.

The swimming team currently expects senior Imelda Wistey to get invited to the NCAA meet, and hopes to add another swimmer or two along with her.

“All of our goals are still out there in front of us,” Sorenson said. “The end of the year is what it’s all about.”