After nearly two months off from competition, the Syracuse swimming and diving team is a little stronger, a little faster and a lot tanner.

The team spent eight days training in San Juan, Puerto Rico, over Winter Break, and they’re now gearing up for Saturday’s meet at West Virginia.

The tropical climate wasn’t the only perk of training in Puerto Rico. The facilities were top-of-the-line compared to Syracuse’s, and the break from school allowed the swimmers to focus on getting in shape for the second half of the season.

‘Obviously, you don’t have any exams. You don’t have any classes,’ SU head coach Lou Walker said. ‘So you can really focus in, and your whole day revolves around your training schedule. The major difference is that, in a week’s span, you pick up a couple of workouts.’

And Syracuse got better workouts, thanks to San Juan’s high-end swimming and exercise complex. The facility also drew teams from Yale, Villanova, Columbia, Boston College and St. John’s.

‘The best part about going down to Puerto Rico was the (10-lane) 50-meter pool, whereas we have a (six-lane) 25-yard facility,’ freshman Ryan Caponera said. ‘That’s a big change, and it took a while to get used to. But it’s a big payoff in the long run.’

‘It really helps prepare us for U.S. Nationals, which is in a long-course pool,’ co-captain Spencer Raymond said. ‘So since we don’t have the facilities here to swim at, when we go down there, it really helps. You have to change your stroke a lot, and when we got back we noticed how much different we felt in the water.’

As for Saturday’s dual meet at West Virginia, Syracuse won’t face the same daunting competition of North Carolina’s Nike Cup. SU took on many of the nation’s top squads at that meet in November. Although many swimmers achieved personal bests, the Orangemen finished eighth out of nine teams and the Orangewomen 10th of 10. West Virginia isn’t as strong of a squad as those that swam in the Nike Cup, though.

‘This is a meet where we can get out ahead before the first break, and if we do, we can stay there,’ Raymond said. ‘But as far as the relays are concerned, I think we can take both of them, which is often a huge make-or-break point in any dual meet.’

Syracuse posted faster times in its relays at the Nike Cup than West Virginia did at the Notre Dame Invitational, a comparable meet to the Nike Cup, held in early December. SU swam the men’s 400-meter medley relay in 3 minutes, 23.28 seconds, more than three seconds faster than WVU. On the women’s side, Syracuse outpaced West Virginia by more than two seconds, at 3:53.21.

‘We have comparable athletes,’ Walker said of Syracuse and WVU, ‘so it should be a meet that could go either way.’

SU will fly into Pittsburgh on Friday morning, where they’ll catch a bus for a 90-minute drive to Morgantown, W.Va. Competition starts on Saturday at 11 a.m., and SU will return home by 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

This trip won’t be quite as luxurious and relaxing as SU’s tropical excursion, but the swimmers are confident the challenging itinerary won’t keep them from putting up their best performances.

‘We look to be pretty strong against them,’ Caponera said. ‘It’s probably going to be a really good meet, but I think that we’re definitely going to come out on top.’

Published on January 15, 2003 at 12:00 pm