After coming off two victories the weekend prior, a bye week would not halt the ISU swimming and diving team’s momentum moving forward.

“It’s just part of our training cycle,” said coach Duane Sorenson. “We had a really good week of practice last week and just kind of build that into our yearly plan.”

The Cyclone swimmers and divers will continue with a full week of practice before heading into their first and only Big 12 meet of the season this weekend in Lawrence, Kan., against the Jayhawks.

For those who aren’t familiar with the sport, they may find it interesting that there is not a real “Big 12” season for swimming and diving. The teams compete against the local schools that are closest in distance and wait until the end of the regular season for a conference meet.

“We don’t keep a win-loss record for the Big 12, so our gauge for how we stand in the conference is at the Big 12 Championship meet in Austin in a few weeks,” Sorenson said. “Dual meets for the Big 12 are kind of an after-thought; you just compete with the teams around you during the regular season.”

With the conference championship comes the opportunity for swimmers to compete in what is called their third event.

This is an event that they don’t usually swim at regular dual meets to try and score more points for the team. The past week has provided ample time for the team to practice and train for those events.

“This week we’ve been spending two to three days on those events, some kids are cycling through during practice, focusing on one event one day and another the next,” Sorenson added. “As we get closer to the Big 12 championships here, we’ll start to be cleaning up all the mistakes and get really sharp in those events, working on all three every day.”

The team will continue to put in hours in the pool as the latter part of the season approaches.

Two dual meets against Kansas this weekend will be the last chance for swimmers and divers to qualify for the NCAA Championships in March.