Princeton and Virginia Tech will come to Charlottesville Friday for the UVA Fall Invitational with hopes of out-swimming the men's and women's Virginia swimming and diving teams, two of the nation's best squads.
The men's team's most recent contest against Navy ended in a 156-136 victory for the Cavaliers Oct. 29. The women have not competed since their tight 150-148 loss against Florida Oct. 11 but the team hopes to come ready to perform.
"It's been a full month since they've raced," coach Mark Bernardino said. "So I'm really excited for them to have the opportunity to get back in the water and compete. I hope they're not race-rusty."
The meet's order of events will be similar to that of the NCAA Championships, except the teams will take only 24 hours to finish all of the races.
"In the course of one day, we're going to do three sessions, so it's just a lot of hard work and a lot of conditioning and a lot of focus and a lot of short-term mentality," Bernardino said. "You have to be focused for that one session and then get out of that super-focused mode, relax and then be able to bounce right back and get super focused again."
The coaches play a crucial role in building mental toughness and will focus on honing specific skills during practice leading up to the event.
"It's no different than any other sport," Bernardino said. "We have to help them strategize and set up the race plan and then they have to execute. Once they get on the starting block, it's out of our control."
Senior Scot Robinson was honored as ACC Performer of the Week last week for the fifth time during his career at Virginia. In September, Robison and freshman teammate Rachel Naurath, were named to the 2010-11 United States National Team, an honor that Robison said has given him a boost competitively.
"[Being on the national team] is definitely something that gives you a lot of confidence and a lot of pride and it's something you really want to live up to," Robison said.
Against Princeton and Virginia Tech, Robison and the Cavaliers face a slew of strong swimmers and competitors.
"They are both exceptionally well-coached teams with really good athletes," Bernardino said. "It should be a lot of good, fast swimming, a lot of good, tough competition, and hopefully it'll give our first-year athletes the chance to be introduced to the championship-meet format versus dual-meet format."\nThe meet will be scored in the invitational-style format so there is no limit to the number of athletes that can compete, although there is a limit on the number of athletes per school who can score.
"You can use eight athletes to score four places so it gives a chance for everybody to be important in this particular meet," Bernardino said.
The first session of competition will begin Friday at 11 a.m. at the Aquatic & Fitness Center.
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