The ISU diving team heads to Iowa City, without the swim team, for the competitive, three-day Iowa Invitational.

This meet will mirror more closely what the Cyclones can expect at championship-style meets because of the added competition and length of the meet.

“This is the situation we want to be in,” said coach Jeff Warrick.“Having the three-day format where we just emphasize one event a day for the divers, that’s ideal because we don’t get that experience that often and that is what our championship events are like, so it’s going to be a great experience for them.”

This is the team’s first long meet of the season and the divers look forward to facing the higher level of competition.

“I’m really excited, I can’t wait to finally have some bigger competitions and finally get a feel for college diving and to compete with the team,” said freshman Elyse Brouillette.

The team has been preparing for this meet and the rest of its season by traveling to Iowa City to use the Hawkeyes’ higher-level platforms.

“We have our 5-footer here, but we are hopefully going to be doing some dives on the higher level so we’ve been really preparing that way,” Warrick said.

The diving team got to have a small break for Thanksgiving and did not compete with the swim team at the last meet in the Kansas Invitational. So the divers are well-rested and feel ready to face the competition awaiting them in Iowa City.

The divers have taken their time back at practice to work on preparing mentally and physically for this competition.

“We’ve been going through our dives a lot and mentally preparing, just going into it with the right mindset so hopefully we can do the same stuff that we do in practice,” Megan Cohea said.

Brouillette also said mental toughness and consistency are what her focus has been on in preparation for this type of competition.

“It’s going to be very competitive, there will be a lot of great divers there,” Warrick said.