Quotes by Mark Gole

“[Western Illinois] wasnt the strongest of opponents. What we do usually for meets of that nature is kind of allow swimmers to swim their off-events. Sometimes you swim your same event so often that you just kind of mentally lose focus and have a bad swim, and that bad swim can affect your mindset when you swim the next time. I liked the opportunity to have the majority of the team swim off events.”

“Our depth is going to be what is going to come up for us against Drury. Drury has horses. They have about four or five horses that are really strong in individual events. At the same time, in order for [Drury coach Brian Reynolds] to even try and win a relay hes going to have to throw all four of them on one relay, where we have both of our relays equally strong. If we make up those 32 points its going to be on our depth.”

“We couldnt have done any better. Our guys showed up to race. We went seasons best in approximately 90 percent of the swims, which, for training as hard as were training, is phenomenal. Usually that does not happen at this time of the year.”

“Mentally, they wanted [to win] so bad - they wanted to take it to Rolla. [Rolla] just had a couple of more horses than we did on the mens side.”

“I think they had a big mental letdown [after losing to Rolla]. And knowing that they are going against the defending national champions of a couple years in a row, I think they already knew it in their heads that they were going to lose.”

“Honestly, we looked tired and tight in our races. [Drury] looked as fresh as they have - as fresh as Ive seen them. ... We swam pretty much the same as we have all year long, its just that they had that one person in every event to shut us down. I realized about halfway it was impossible to overcome it. It ended up being a long day on the pool deck.”

“I really hate excuses, but we probably had two of the most intense weeks of training the last two weeks. I was not about to sacrifice swimming fast later on just for the satisfaction of swimming fast in a dual meet. I will never do that.”

“I think when our team was firing on all cylinders was our two-day dual meet against the University of Indianapolis. Coming right out of the training trip, it just seemed like everything was just falling into place. We had great swims left and right.”

“We swam them earlier this year, and Rolla just annihilated us. It wasnt even close. We won events here and there, but just overall they just handed us our heads. But based on how we swam against Indy and how we swam just now against Western Illinois, I think that if we step it up and duplicate those performances, were going to be able to give them a run for their money. It will be nail-biter. It will come down to every point.”

“Its really tough mentally for the swimmers who have qualified for nationals because they are still training like its the middle of the season. They are still hurting their bodies.”