The ISU swimming and diving team will play host again this week as it takes on another Big 10 opponent, the Illinois Fighting Illini, on Friday night.

The team fell to the Minnesota Golden Gophers last weekend, 194-98. Coach Duane Sorenson said the Cyclones didn’t match up well against the Gophers, but he said their meet against Illinois will not be as difficult.

“It should be a very competitive meet, since we match up really well in a number of races,” he said. “It should be a very challenging meet, but a very winnable one.”

The Cyclones failed against Fighting Illini when they traveled to Champaign last year. Sorenson said the Fighting Illini happened to be on fire that night and beat Iowa State with ease.

He said it was a much closer meet than the scores reflected. Sorenson said he is hoping for a little bit of revenge this year, since the Cyclones have the home pool advantage.

Another favorable ISU advantage is the lack of depth on the Illinois roster. Minnesota had a very deep roster, Sorenson said, proving to be a disadvantage for Iowa State last week.

Since the Fighting Illini have about as many swimmers as the Cyclones do, he said he expects that his secondary swimmers will match up well with Illinois’.

Diving coach Jeff Warrick said he believes his divers are ready and will continue to dive well.

“They’ve been diving really well, and they got some really good scores last week. For them to get those this early in the season is a nice sign,” he said.

Warrick said his divers did well last year in Illinois even though it wasn’t their best meet. If Hillary Nichols hadn’t been diving for exhibition only, because of an injury, he believed her scores would have been good enough for first place.

One thing the divers are hoping to eliminate Friday night is their balks. Although a balk is a term associated with baseball, it still means the same thing in diving. A diver travels to the end of the board like she is going to dive, but then stops, costing several points.

To prevent this, the divers must work on their mental state when they are at the back of the board, Warrick said, making sure they are focused so they don’t stop when they get to the end of the board.

Two members — a swimmer and a diver — will most likely not participate in the meet. Swimmer Chelsey Walden is still progressing through mononucleosis; the divers will be without Nichols because of her sprained right ankle.

Sorenson also said he is also concerned about a stomach flu virus that afflicted a couple of swimmers this week.

The Cyclones will take on the Illinois Fighting Illini at 6 p.m. Friday in the Beyer Hall pool.