Assistant coach Jake Shellenberger compared the five Penn State men's swimmers who made the NCAAs to first-round draft picks in football.
Because the NCAA championships is considered the "fastest meet in the world," qualifiers are of an elite class, similar to the first 30 people drafted by the NFL, he said.
"You have to be one of the top 20 or 30 people in the country to get a cut for NCAAs," Shellenberger said. "There's going to be unbelievably fast swimming. It will be exciting to watch the best swimmers in the country compete."
Penn State seniors Sean Biedermann and Sean Swanepoel along with juniors Jason Goldner, Vincent Reydams and Pat Schirk will compete today, tomorrow and Saturday in Federal Way, Wash., against the top 270 swimmers in the country. Junior Tim Williams is first alternate for the meet and will compete only if someone drops out.
The Nittany Lions enter the meet with a goal to score team points. Last season, they sent nine men to NCAAs and walked away with a score of 0.
"We need to keep a confident state of mind," Schirk said. "It's a very unforgiving environment. If you don't perform well in prelims, you aren't going to perform at all in finals."
The team is looking to get swimmers to the finals this season and is confident Schirk will be a big factor in terms of accumulating points.
Shellenberger said Schirk is the team's biggest weapon. He is seeded second in the 200 backstroke and is expected to make a run for the championship in that event.
Schirk also hopes to become the fourth person in history to swim under 1 minute, 40 seconds in the 200 backstroke. His fastest time of 1:40.87 was recorded at the Big Ten championships last month.
"We have a lot of confidence in Pat," Reydams said. "We know he'll be faster than he was at Big Tens, and we are expecting a top-3 finish from him in the 200 back."
As a team, the Lions are aiming for a top-25 finish. With five men competing in eight events, they understand this will be difficult.
Reydams said some of the powerhouse teams will send close to a full team to the championships, which automatically gives them a chance to score more points.
"A disadvantage for us is definitely the number of people we're bringing to the meet," Schirk said. "We were expecting to bring a couple more people. It's definitely a weakness because the less people we bring the less points we get, and the harder it is for us to place where we want to."
Even with the shortage of men at the championships, the team is confident it will do well. It had an idea of who would make a cut ahead of time, so those men have been preparing mentally and physically for several weeks.
Four of the five men were at the championships last year. Goldner is the only newcomer.
"We are all ready to go," Reydams said.
"We just need to stay focused so we are at our peak performance."
