The ISU women’s swimming team is anxious to start competing, but they won’t have to wait long. The annual Big 12 Conference Relays are being held Friday in Lincoln, Neb.

ISU head coach Duane Sorenson said Texas is the clear favorite in the conference this season. He said they are in a class by themselves atop the Big 12.

Besides Texas, Sorenson said Missouri historically swims well in this meet. He said the Tigers, as well as Kansas and Texas A&M, have teams similar to his squad.

Sorenson said avoiding injury will be important in achieving the goals for rest of the season.

“We want to be healthy and strong going into the Big 12 Championships and NCAA Tournament,” Sorenson said. “For instance, right now, we are swimming 13,000 yards each day in practice and by the end of the year we will drop down to 3,000.”

The team has put in a lot of time and effort training for the season and is ready to go, senior swimmer Kristen Vanek said.

“We just finished our dry-land training and are now running two times a week and swimming in the morning and late afternoon three times a week,” Vanek said.

The team is coming off its best year ever and is looking to repeat its feats.

“We had our best dual-meet record in 20 years, best overall year ever and also had the most NCAA individual invites we have ever had,” Sorenson said.

Iowa State had an impressive 7-2 record in last season’s dual meets and had three NCAA qualifiers. It also finished fourth at the 2002 Big 12 Championships.

Sorenson said the swimmers and divers are focused on repeating the success of last year’s team.

He also said the nine newcomers on the team are coming along in the learning process.

“It is always fun to see the freshmen experience everything for the first time,” Vanek said. “They bring a newness to the team and the excitement rubs off on the upperclassmen.”

“My expectations for the newcomers are that they believe in our team philosophy that we are a family and that they mold in well,” she said. “They have a lot of potential and can push us older students.”

Although the Big 12 Conference Relays are important, swimming teams focus on results at the end of the year.

“The swimmers’ times won’t be as fast as they will be at the end of the year,” Sorenson said. “Going into the meet, I am more interested in them bettering their team and individual times and not so much on our placing, because we can’t control what the other teams do.”