The University of Evansville women’s swimming & diving team will travel to Carbondale, Ill., to compete in the 2011 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Championships this week.

Hosted by Southern Illinois, the event begins on Thursday and ends on Saturday. Preliminary heats for the 200-freestyle relay, 500-free, 200-individual medley, 50-free, 1-meter diving and 400-medley relay will start at 11:00 a.m. Thursday.

“The biggest thing for us this weekend will be confidence,” said head coach Rickey Perkins. “Our goals are simple and haven’t changed all year – every meet we focus on having fun, being a team and competing with our hearts.

“This whole season we’ve been working on competing to the best of our ability with no expectations,” Perkins continued. “That means demonstrating our skills, supporting our teammates, putting in the effort and setting manageable goals that we can accomplish.”

Evansville was picked to finish fourth of five teams in the MVC Pre-Championship Poll, as voted on by the league coaches.

Going into this weekend, the Aces hold 17 top-three finishes in the MVC, including the first place time in the 400-yard individual medley (Melissa Thurman) and the 200-free relay, and the top scores on the 1-meter (Jen Childers) and the 3-meter (Sadie Wells) diving boards.

Last year, Evansville finished fourth with a team score of 432 points. Michea Reinitz was the only Purple Ace to earn first team all-MVC status by placing third in the 100-butterfly. Hannah Quast, Alex Howard, Jill Enge, Phoebe Hodina and Wells were named all-MVC honorable mention. Quast placed seventh in the 200-free and eighth in the 50- and 100-free. Howard finished in seventh in the 100-backstroke while Enge was sixth in the 100-breaststroke. Hodina finished in eighth place in the 400 IM. Wells posted fifth place scores in both 1-meter and 3-meter events.

“I am fully confident that we’re going to do great this weekend,” added Perkins. “We’ve been preparing all year and using our meets as dress rehearsals for the championship. Now its just time for the actual performance.”