The Iowa State swimming and diving team has one more chance to win before the Big 12 Championships. This weekend, the Cyclones will be back in Beyer Hall to take on a two-day meet with Kansas.

The biggest difference in this meet for the diving team is adding a platform event.

“We are actually preparing platform for one season long,” said diving coach Jeff Warrick. “As far as we are going not ramping anything up because we do consistently.”

Redshirt junior Sydney Ronald also was confident about platform.

“We practice every Wednesday and Sunday,” Ronald said. “[I am] ready and treating practice on Wednesday like a meet.”

Ronald felt the West Virginia meet went well for herself, especially for her victory in the three-meter board. Actually, Ronald kept a steady and perfect performance in her diving events for the last two meets.

Even though Ronald believed the diving team would still go through a harder road when facing Kansas.

“I think [this meet] definitely can be mentally and physically tougher than other previous meets,” Ronald said. “We should definitely get ready for Big 12, that is really important.”

The tense atmosphere was not only surrounding the diving athletes, but also the whole team.

“The whole idea behind this meet is simulating the Big 12 Championship,” said coach Duane Sorenson. “We have seven sessions [in two days] that they have to keep their intensity.”

Most athletes will have preliminaries on Friday night and finals on Saturday morning. Although they are used to that, they have to relearn how to get their energy and intensity back up soon.

The two-day meet helps athletes feel how the conference championship will run and their bodies get used to the high-intensity race in advance.

Sorenson also wants his swimmers to adjust themselves mentally and focus on little techniques to overcome Kansas.

The important thing is not hesitating. Based on the last meet with West Virginia, Sorenson believed hesitation caused them to lose the meet.

Sorenson said his swimmers were not familiar with West Virginia’s pool, especially the starting blocks. Therefore, the swimmers always were hesitating in the beginning of races.

But for this time, the Cyclones at least hold a home pool advantage.

“The biggest challenges [for our swimmers] is that [Kansas is] very talented,” Sorenson said. “We are gonna compete every race and do a great job, not just first swimmer, but second and third swimmer. ”