"Every meet that we've had so far this year has been pointing to the one and only one meet, and that was the NCAA Championships."

So said Eric Hansen, head coach of the UW swimming program. And after a conference meet that saw the UW women's squad finish sixth among its Big Ten competitors, he maintained his confidence in his team's ability to excel at the impending national event.

"We swam through the Big Ten Championships, [w]here we had the majority of women that we needed to qualify [do so]," Hansen said. "I feel really good about where we are right now. I see no reason that we shouldn't expect to be better than we've ever been, and the best we've done is 10th.

"Given good health and no injuries, we'll just swim the way we've been training, and we're going to really enjoy this meet."

The 2006 NCAA meet will be hosted by the University of Georgia — the nation's top-ranked program and favorite to win the championship — in Athens, Ga., during the weekend of Mar. 16-18.

Before the Championships begin, the UW diving team will try to qualify individuals for the national meet at the NCAA Zonal meet, which (for Wisconsin — there are five different locations) takes place this weekend at the Ohio State University. Hansen said his female divers — Amanda Witte and Laura Davidson — appear to be hard-pressed in their attempts to join the core squad in Georgia.

"We would embrace any diver that we can take to the meet, but we're going to need to dive significantly better than we've dove all year in order for that to happen," the seventh-year coach explained.

On the younger side of the team, Hansen dubbed his freshman class as "the future of the swimming program," and Yi Ting Siow, who clinched a Big Ten Championship in the 200-yard breaststroke, heads it. She will be entering the NCAA tournament with a No. 4 seeding, the rank among her teammates.

"Yi Ting is going to be an impact swimmer for us in the NCAA Championships," Hansen said. "She has a chance to final in at least one event, if not two or approximately even three. It's a lot [for a freshman], but she's capable of a lot."

The Badgers bring 11 swimmers to the national meet and are representative of an evenly balanced team in terms of class. Four seniors, two juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen make up Wisconsin's scheduled roster at the NCAAs.

With freshmen like Siow and Jennifer Illescas headed to Athens — as well as fellow rookies like Jill Courtney and Katie Twitchell looking to join them in the future — this year's quartet of seniors has done what they can to help pass the torch to the next grouping of UW swimmers.

"Hopefully, we've been motivating them at practices and at meets," senior sprinter Sarah Hernandez said. "I wouldn't say it's just the seniors, just all the upperclassmen trying to keep the morale up and keep people charged for competition."

Hernandez, Emily Carpenter, Amalia Sarnecki and Anna Trinidad are the seniors that will end their careers at the national meet. Hernandez and Sarnecki, alongside sophomores Hannah McClurg and Jackie Vavrek, are expected to compete as a group in the 200-yard freestyle relay, the event in which they set a Wisconsin record on Feb. 16 at the conference meet.

Juniors Susan Johnson, Andrea Wiesner and sophomore Jenny Gelden round out the UW women's NCAA representatives.

Hernandez concurred with Hansen's assessment of Wisconsin's capabilities when it comes to team results at the NCAAs.

"Ideally, we would like to be in the top 10, which I think we can do if everyone swims well. It's not really that out of the question," she said.

The Badgers' main goal, according to Hansen, will be to build off victories at the conference level and try to put together the right combination of individual successes to place as high as they can at "the one and only meet."

"We're really pleased, we're coming off Big Ten Championships," Hansen said. "We're never happy with where we end up there, but all in all, it doesn't really matter.

"But if you're competitive, you don't like to get beat. We're about to rectify that at the meet that matters most to us."