Sept. 28, 2004

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THIS WEEK
Sept. 28 - INTRASQUAD, 12:30 p.m.
Oct. 2 - at Nevada (women only), Noon

LAST SEASON
Women - 5-5 in duals, 2nd at PCSC Championships
Men - 5-4 in duals, 1st at PCSC Championships

NOTES
Aggie women launch winter sports season with dual at Nevada, although both men's and women's teams will compete in Blue-Gold intrasquad meet Tuesday... Head women's coach Barbara Jahn fields relatively young team that features 19 newcomers, including 15 true freshmen... Among key arrivals is Renee Dyer, who swam at Utah in 2001-02, then earned State JC Swimmer of the Year honors at Sierra College in 2003... Also a new face is diving coach Phil Tonne, who served as diving mentor at UC Berkeley since 1984... Tonne replaces Karla Helder, who took position at Univ. of Buffalo.

Top returnees include junior Yuka Kobayashi, who won 100 back, 200 back and 200 fly titles at last year's Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference meet... Junior Michelle Jennings set school records for 500 free (5:01.06) and 1,000 free (10:30.27) at the PCSC meet, earning all-conference honors in each.

Both men's and women's teams will compete at the Big West Conference meet this season, and are eligible for conference titles and/or All-Big West honors... Conference meet is held February 23-26 at the Belmont Plaza in Long Beach... Pacific won women's title in 2003, while UC Santa Barbara edged Tigers for men's title.

WOMEN'S COACH BARBARA JAHN QUOTES
ON BLUE-GOLD: "That meet will give us a lot of information about how people race. It will help us determine where to put people. We'll start everyone with 50s in all the strokes, so everyone is compared apples-to-apples. That way, we can create our relays with an objective database."

ON NEVADA DUAL: "This is one the earliest meets we've ever had. Usually, we'd be going to Lake Berryessa for an open-water swim. Instead, we're going to Reno to compete against the Wolf Pack. They've always had a really strong team, and since it's women-only, the events go really fast. It will be a wake-up call for us. We're excited because so many of our swimmers are new and we haven't seen them in competition."

"This meet will be our first against outside competition. We usually go to an invitational for our first meet, so people aren't in a dual-meet frame of mind. They just want to see how fast they can swim. A dual is about scoring as many points as we can. So that will be a different mindset. It's harder to open with a dual, especially against a good team like Nevada. Plus, we have no other competitions from which we can gather information. We often swim a meet on paper, by figuring out where the other coach will put their swimmers."

ON NEWCOMERS: "They've raised the bar in terms of our training. Having Renee Dyer is a key for us this year. She will be significant. The returning swimmers are looking around, seeing really fast girls as a part of our team. Some of them see the writing on the wall, that they have to step up in order to make the traveling squad or the conference team. That will only make people stronger, seeing what they're up against. But overall, the sophomores and juniors have come back in better shape compared to last year."

ON THE BIG WEST CONFERENCE: "Everything's new - we're in the new facility, we've got a new team and we're in a new conference. Nobody has any expectations laid out. We have the depth that will make us competitive. What's also exciting is getting to schedule teams like UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine in dual meets. That competition will really set us up for a great conference meet."