In its first test of the season, the ISU women’s swimming and diving team will be traveling to Lawrence, Kan., to participate in the Big 12 Relays on Friday.

Head coach Duane Sorenson says the meet is low-pressure and is always interesting because the participating teams are usually at an early part of its training cycles.

“It’s always a fun and exciting meet because we get to see where all the other Big 12 schools are; it lets us know where we stand — if we’re on pace or we need to work a little bit harder,” he said.

Junior co-captain Kim Rogers says she is really excited because relay meets are rare. She also says she feels confident.

“It should be a good team-building experience,” she said.

Sophomore Lauren Breunig is looking forward to seeing where the team stands in relation to the rest of the Big 12.

“It will be good process to see how good we have to be and how hard we have to work,” Breunig said of the meet.

In the past week, the swimmers have been hard at work improving their relay exchanges, as the meet is nothing but relay races. Rogers and Breunig agreed that the exchanges can be a problem sometimes because people can jump the gun — jumping in before the swimmer in the water touches the wall — so they need practice, they said.

A few of the swimmers have been asked to step up for this meet because the team is a little shorthanded, Sorenson said.

Sophomore Chelsey Walden, the team’s best distance swimmer, is unavailable because she has Mono and sophomore Cassandra Nelson is out with an injured shoulder.

Another aspect the squad seeks to improve is aggressiveness in the pool.

“What ends up happening is when the girls are swimming into the wall, the tendency is slow down and glide,” Sorenson said. “When we’re racing, that becomes very glaring so we’re asking everybody to be more much aggressive into their turns.”

Last year, the swimmers finished fourth at the Big 12 Relays and Sorenson said they could finish there again, they’ll just have to see what happens.