All five teams will be at the PAC this weekend and Manistee is hoping to finish at the top of the pack.
The Chippewas already swept their way to a regular season conference title to earn at least a split of the overall championship, but don’t want to share. They can win a second straight outright title by prevailing in the conference championships Friday and Saturday.
“It’s exciting and nerve wracking,” said Manistee’s Syriah Dobis. “I think it makes us want to win even more because we’re at our own pool and it’s kind of like a home-team advantage.”
Manistee will host the girls conference championships for the first time and they begin with swimming preliminaries at 3 p.m. on Friday. Those who finish in the top eight of each event will advance to Saturday’s championship heats while those ninth through 16th will move on to the consolation heats.
“There’s no tomorrow,” said Manistee coach Corey Van Fleet. “We aim everything for Friday.”
Diving preliminaries will begin at about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday and all consolation and championship events start at 1 p.m.
“Friday we have to be able to make it into the top eight to be able to have those positions,” Dobis said, “and then swim on Saturday in the finals and do our best that day, when it counts.”
The Chippewas haven’t had a meet since Oct. 18 — a three-week break during which they’ve reduced the workload.
“At this point we’re just resting,” Van Fleet said. “The first week (off) we just kept doing what we were doing before and then we fooled around at the end of the week with some speed work. Then we started backing off a bit. This week we’re not doing much of anything — tuning up drills and trying to have some fun.”
