Cougar Swimmers Ready for Start of Season

PROVO -- For the first competition of the year the Cougar men's and women's swim teams travel to Salt Lake City to participate in the Don Reddish Relays on Friday at 6 p.m. at the Ute Natatorium. The women will then follow up on Saturday with a dual meet against New Mexico at 12 p.m. That meet will also be held in Salt Lake.

"This event will give us a chance to find out how our team is coming along in training," BYU men's head coach Tim Powers said. "That is especially true for our new guys. Many of them are getting a taste of competition at a level they have never seen before."

The Reddish Relays consist of 12 relays, many of which are non-traditional like the 4x100 IM. The five regular dual-meet relays will also be tested as both teams will see their first action away from their own team. This is an un-scored meet that only BYU and Utah will take part in.

On Saturday the pre-season MWC favorite BYU women team will have its first dual meet of the season versus the University of New Mexico.

"We need to take this dual meet seriously because they are definitely better than last year and since this is so early in our season we don't know exactly what to expect from our own team," BYU women's head coach Stan Crump. "This weekend will be a great opportunity for our us to get out of the training pool and into the competition pool."

The Cougar women are coming off a Mountain West Conference Championship season and will be lead by co-captains Angela Goodson-Price and Angela Nelson. The BYU men have been picked to finish second this year in the pre-season polls.

The Utah women are coming off an impressive 2006-07 dual-meet record of 10-0 and they finished second to BYU in the MWC Championship, while the Ute men finished fourth at end of the year conference tournament. The Lobo women finished in seventh place last season at the MWC Championship.

The Cougar men and women will both see their next action on Oct. 19th at the Richards Building Pool as they compete in the Blue/White Meet at 6 p.m.