It has been more than a month since the Syracuse swimming and diving teams registered a win. After starting their seasons 2-0, both the men and women dropped their dual meet records to 2-2.

When Massachusetts swims into Webster Pool today for a rare two-day meet, the degree of difficulty will become even steeper.

Looking for their fifth Atlantic-10 championship in seven years, the Minutemen are 3-1. The UMass women (3-2) won the Atlantic-10 last year. The Orangewomen beat the Minutewomen, 240-130, last year, but the Orangemen lost, 239-127.

Unfortunately, UMass is only half of Syracuse’s battle.

‘It is getting really tough with everybody getting ready for finals and all,’ sophomore Kalei Mahi said. ‘I mean, some of us are tired. We have some engineers on the team who are up to their ears in work, and then we practice twice a day.’

In addition, Syracuse head coach Lou Walker practices his swimmers hard throughout the first four months of the six-month swimming and diving season.

At the season’s close, the intensive early-season practices translate into better NCAA championship times, he said. But Syracuse swimmers tend to be at a physical disadvantage for the dual-meet season. Two-day meets, like this weekend’s, compound the problem.

The exhausting format begins this evening at 5 with the diving events, held at Sibley Pool in the Women’s Building. Swimming starts an hour later in Webster Pool with five events and resumes Saturday morning at Webster with seven more. After a three-hour break, the meet concludes at 3 p.m. with the final six events. This will be Syracuse’s only two-day meet of the year.

The two-day format counts as only one meet in the win/loss columns, but as the final meet before a month and a half break, it is Syracuse’s last chance to keep its winless streaks from extending to three months.

‘It would be great to win this one as a team, to put a win up on the board right before break,’ Mahi said.

The team will be going on a 10-day training trip to Puerto Rico starting Jan. 2, and Mahi said a win over UMass ‘would give us some motivation for all the training we have to do.’

For individual times, too, it is important that the swimmers post solid times before the layoff.

‘Maintaining fast times in the 100- and 200- (yard breaststroke) is important,’ said Mahi, who has already posted Big East qualifying times in both events. ‘It’s all about speed at this point, so I’ve got to keep that up.’

For others, like freshman Mike Anstrom, there is more urgency.

‘I am really hoping to get some Big East cuts,’ Anstrom said. ‘If I am going to really drop my times, I want to do it before the big break.’

Anstrom had hoped to put up qualifying times at the Nike Cup on Nov. 15-17. When that didn’t happen, performing well against UMass became more important.

In the Nike Cup, a prestigious invitational at North Carolina that drew eight prominent competitors from around the nation, both SU teams placed last. North Carolina won both the men’s and women’s competitions. Their men scored 875 points, their women 874. Syracuse’s women totaled 172 points and the men only 39.

Anstrom said that compared to the other competitors, he was not ready. Most of the non-Syracuse swimmers in the meet wore ‘fast-skins,’ the full body swimsuits that limit water resistance, and many of the male swimmers shaved in order to clip valuable time off their races. Most Syracuse swimmers did neither.

‘I was really disappointed with my times at the Nike Cup,’ Anstrom said. ‘It was frustrating because I know some of the guys we were up against, and I could beat them in high school but I could not do anything against them at the Nike Cup.

‘Sometimes, words cannot express my frustration, and that was one of those times. I feel so small in meets like that. The UMass meet is our chance to turn things around before the training break.’

Published on November 29, 2001 at 12:00 pm