ASU's men's and women's swimming and diving teams officially begin their 2005-06 season today when they travel to Hawaii for a dual meet.
The team is taking 16 men and 12 women to compete in this season-opening meet, and coach Michael Chasson is excited about what the meet should bring.
"We're going to get some good training in and around the meet," Chasson said. "I'm hoping that we'll have some very good races. We've done this twice before, and both times we've raced really well. I hope we'll go over there and race and give us a good first meet of the season."
One of the women to keep an eye on in this meet and throughout the season is sophomore Caitlin Andrew. This will be her first official action after her remarkable freshman season, in which she won the Pac-10 title for the 100-meter butterfly and finished fourth in the NCAA in the same event.
Andrew's sophomore season began in similar fashion to her freshman campaign, as she won the intra-squad pentathlon two weeks ago for the second straight year.
That win capped an excellent preseason for her, as she won the 50-yard breaststroke and was part of two winning relay teams at the Alumni Meet Oct. 1, and led the underclassmen women to a 74-37 victory over the upperclassmen at the intra-squad meet Oct. 7.
"She's trying to do things to get better," Chasson said. "She knows that she had a good year last year, but you got to keep working harder to find things you can improve on, and I think she's doing that. I think her workouts are better, she's off to a stronger start, and she's in a lot better shape than she was at this time last year, so I think she's doing really well."
This season-opening meet will also give many new Sun Devils their first taste of NCAA action. For the men, freshmen Marcus Titus and Sean Boyle and junior college transfer Cheyne O'Gorman will swim in this meet, while freshmen Jen Beckberger and Amy Konowalik will compete for the women.
"We're going to see what they've got," Chasson said. "But they've been training well, so I'd expect something pretty good."
The teams will then return home for a meet with UC Santa Barbara next Friday evening, as they continue to build toward what will be their midpoint of the season test at the Texas Invitational Dec. 1-3.
Reach the reporter at matthew.storey@asu.edu.
