The Vandal swim and dive team made its way down to Boise last week to face the Boise State Broncos for the Vandals’ first duel of the season.
The Vandals fell to the Broncos 185-148.
Twenty-one of the 30 Idaho swim and dive athletes are underclassmen — eight sophomores and 13 freshmen. For many of the Idaho athletes, this was their first collegiate meet.
More than half of the Vandal team is returning from the previous season.
Idaho coach Mark Sowa has faced Boise State every year since he has been in charge of the Vandal program. Although each effort against the Broncos has been winless, Sowa believes that the end result does not dictate the team’s overall performance.
“Overall I think we performed well under the circumstances,” Sowa said. “Travel, nerves and a really good opponent took its toll but we got better throughout the weekend and saw some really promising things.”
With only two seniors on the team this season, Sowa still believes this team is the deepest team he has coached at Idaho.
Sowa’s message to the team after the duel was simple.
“It’s the first chance to race and the second week of October,” he said. “We’ve only just begun to figure out who we are as a team but be excited for the journey.”
Now that the season is underway, Sowa said the team is focusing on competing more than practicing their craft.
“Our skills need to improve as well as our attention to detail,” Sowa said. “We are only six weeks into our training so now it is time to improve our overall focus and continue to build on the initial preparation phase of the season.”
Idaho has six Western Athletic Conference regular-season matchups in the next four months with a couple invites mixed in between.
The Vandals take on Simon Fraser 4 p.m. Friday and Northern Colorado at 11 a.m. Saturday at the UI Swim Center.
Mitch Cline can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @larrybirdhoover