After a victory against Northern Iowa, the Iowa State swimming and diving team is hoping to continue its winning streak. The Cyclones will head to Morgantown, West Virginia, to take on two opponents, West Virginia and Villanova. 

It will be a competitive race, especially between Iowa State and West Virginia. The two teams have had close battles, making this matchup a close one.

Beside, in the last three years, the swim meet between those two teams came down to the last relay.

“It’s gonna be exactly the same type of meet [as last year],” said swimming coach Duane Sorenson. “On paper, West Virginia is a little bit stronger than us.”

Last year, Iowa State’s relay A took first in the final neck and neck 200-yard freestyle relay race, then secured the victory. Sorenson believes it will be essential for the team to catch the final event again.

“We had to come up with great effort, then make it come down to the last relay,” Sorenson said, “[The] last three years, we’ve been good in relays, so we are hoping to do that again in this year.”

In addition to relay events, distance freestyles are always Iowa State’s advantageous events.

Sophomore Keely Soellner is the top distance swimmer on the team. She won all distance events in the last two meets with Iowa and UNI.

“I will get a little nervous [before the race], but more like excited,” Soellner said. “I like listening to music that will pump me up.”

For the next meet with West Virginia, Soellner thinks it will be a good meet and she is excited to see what they all can do. She is  placed great expectations on her race.

“I would say in the 1000 freestyles, we can do very well again, the 500 free, [West Virginia] are very competitive with that,” Sorenson said. “They could win, we could win. So we are hoping that we can win that race. That is an important race for us.”

Although the Cyclones hold a winning streak against the Mountaineers since the 2013-14 season, they still prepare completely for this dual meet.