It’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for NIU men’s swimming and diving team this weekend.

After dealing with two-a-day practices for the past several weeks, the Huskies will open the season on Friday with a six-way dual meet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The meet features the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota from the Big Ten Conference and Iowa State University from the Big Eight Conference.

NIU coach Dave Clark knows that to start the season against outstanding competition won’t make life easy for the Huskies.

“It’s gong to be tough against the caliber of opponents we’re facing to start the season,” Clark said. “Wisconsin and Minnesota are both likely to end up ranked in the top 10 in the nation by the end of the season.”

“Right now we are about as ready as we can be for the season to start,” Clark added. “We’ve been swimming about 8,000 yards a day which is equivalent to miles and we are fundementally sound right now.”

In order to compete against such formidable opponents, NIU might have to come up with an extraordinary performance this weekend.

“Wisconsin versus Minnesota will be the biggest dual meet of the weekend. They will be the favorites, but we will gain valuable experience at this meet,” explaned Clark.

“We have about half a dozen swimmers who can compete against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa State at this meet, and it’s a chance for us to see what national level competition is like, and we want to perform at that level by the end of the season.”

Clark knows that if his team doesn’t peform well this weekend, he and his team will have to work harder to compete at the “next level” throughout the remainder of the season.

“This weekend is important because we never really opened up a season against such tough teams, but we also have other important tournements later in the season.” said Clark.

“We would like to do well in the Wheaton Invitational (in December) and at the NCAA Mid-West Regional in March.

“This first meet of the year will set a tone for the year and if we don’t perform, we’ll have to work harder.”