After a strong first showing this past Saturday in Minneapolis, Chicago swimming and diving will split up to compete in Wheaton and Chicago respectively this weekend.

The Maroons left the St. Thomas Relays winning 12 out of the 21 events, including two in men’s diving, four in men’s swimming, and six in women’s swimming.

Third-year Anthony Restaino swept men’s diving, placing first in both the one and three meter events.

“I would contribute a large portion of my success so far this season to my coach Kendra [Melnychuk]. She is awesome, and she knows exactly what to do to make me and the other divers on the team the best that we can be,” Restaino said. “She has made me a better diver with every practice that I go to, and I couldn’t ask for a better coach.”

Restaino also noted that this coming weekend’s meet at UIC would likely be more challenging than his first two of the year due to the level of competition as well as the added scholastic pressures.

“The UIC meet is usually very interesting for us, because they are a D-I school, and they always are tough competition, so going into this meet, the things I am focusing on are just trying to get the qualifying scores for zones. What I need to do is make sure I get plenty of sleep before the meet, but it’s midterms so we will see what happens,” he said.

Second-year Ciara Hu, who was involved in two Maroon relay victories this past weekend, felt that the quality of practice has enabled the swimmers to fly out of the gate quickly.

“The team this year has a contagious, positive attitude that really helps me and my teammates to put in that little extra effort into practice. Personally, trying to stay in shape over this summer definitely helped me hit the ground running,” she said.

Hu also stressed the importance of the elements in her control.

“If I focus on my competition, if I’m behind my stroke will get sloppy in my desperate attempt to try and beat them, and if I’m ahead, I would not push myself as hard because I’m only focused on beating them. In a race, it is you against the clock,” Hu said.

Hu and the rest of the Chicago swimmers will head to Wheaton while the two Maroon divers, third-years Anthony Restaino and Sofia Gross, will stay in Chicago—albeit not on their home turf—as they make a short trip to UIC to meet their competition.

Chicago’s swim meet at Wheaton begins at 11 a.m. tomorrow. The dive meet is at UIC at 1 p.m.