SPOKANE, Wash. -- The Whitworth University swimming teams head to this week's Northwest Conference championships as both the hunter and the hunted. The Pirate women hope to do something that has never been done - beat Puget Sound at the conference championship meet. The Loggers have won every title since joining the league 11 years ago. Meanwhile, the Whitworth men hope to win their sixth straight NWC title and seventh in the last eight years.

The Northwest Conference Championships will take place this weekend (February 8-10) at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Washington.

Click here for the meet/session schedule.

Click here for the meet psych sheet.

"We are healthy and that is most important," said Whitworth head coach Steve Schadt. "We had a flu bug go through the team over a two week period, but that seems to have runs its course. Some of our groups are accelerating through our taper faster than others, but that is to be expected. Overall, we are very ready to go."

Schadt, a former Pirate All-American swimmer, is in his fifth year leading the Whitworth swimming teams. He was NWC Men's Coach of the Year in 2006 and NWC Women's Coach of the Year in 2007.

David Dolphay

The Men: Whitworth's men won their fifth NWC title in dramatic fashion last year. After picking up a disqualification in the 400 Medley Relay that dropped the team from first place to third place in the team standings after the first day of competition, the Pirates rallied to defeat Linfield on the final day by 18 points. Whitworth relied on its depth to win the meet, winning only four individual events and no relays. But ten different Pirates scored in the championship finals to fuel the come back.

Depth will be Whitworth's chief weapon again this season as the Pirates have 12 different swimmers seeded among the top eight places in at least two different events heading into Friday's first races.

The men will be led by two-time NWC Men's Swimmer of the Meet David Dolphay (Sr., Great Falls, Mont.). Dolphay has won the 200, 500 and 1,6500 Freestyles each of the last two seasons. He is seeded first in both the 500 and 1,650 this year and second in the 200 to teammate Michael Woodward (Fr., Springfield, Ore.). Woodward is also seeded first in the 200 Individual Medley and 100 Freestyle. Whitworth's men have the meet's fastest seeded times in all three freestyle relays (200, 400, 800).

Other contenders for individual men's titles include Bryan Clarke (Sr., Seattle, Wash.), who is the defending champion in the 200 Breaststroke and is currently seeded third in the 100 Breaststroke; Luke Stocker (Sr., Anchorage, Alaska), who is seeded third in the 100 Backstroke; and Quinton Darling (So., Honolulu, Hawaii), who is the third seed in both the 400 I.M. and 200 Breaststroke.

"Our men have not only grown accustomed to the pressure of defending the title, but now thrive on it," said Schadt. "They use it to motivate themselves. They know who they are up against and they take a lot of pride in what they've accomplished."

Natalie Turner

Samantha Kephart

The Women: Whitworth's women finished second last season, despite winning 12 of 18 events and four of five relays. But Puget Sound used its depth to defeat the Pirates by 49 points in the final standings.

However Whitworth has drastically improved its depth this season. Like the men, the Pirate women have 12 different swimmers seeded among the top eight in at least two different events headed into the meet. Whitworth has never had that kind of depth prior to this season. In addition, the Bucs have the fastest seeded time in all five relays and eight of the individual events.

Natalie Turner (So., South Lake Tahoe, Wash.) returns as the defending NWC Women's Swimmer of the Meet. Turner will aim to defend her titles in the 200, 500 and 1,650 Freestyles. Samantha Kephart (Sr., Santa Maria, Calif.) will try to close out her brilliant career by defending her titles in the 100 and 200 Butterflies and win those events for the fourth straight season. Brittany Gresset (Jr., Seattle, Wash.) returns as the defending champion of both the 50 and 100 Freestyles.

In addition, Yasi Kheshgi (So., Evanston, Ill.) has the top-seeded time in the 400 Individual Medley, while Marjorie Turner (Sr., South Lake Tahoe, Wash.) has the fastest seed time in the 200 Backstroke.

"Our women head into this meet much more confident than last year," said Schadt. "They have developed their own expectation to win any meet in which they compete. There is nothing taken for granted, but nothing they might accomplish will surprise them either."

Whitworth's only NWC title in women's swimming came in 1995.

The meet: The NWC Championships will run as a prelims-finals competition. Each day's events will be swum in the morning as preliminaries. The top 16 swimmers return to score points each night, with the 9th - 16th qualifiers competing in the consolation finals and the top eight qualifiers swimming in the championship final heat.

This is the third time that the NWC Championship meet will be held at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. During each of the previous two meets (2004 and 2006), several meet and NWC records were broken.

Click here for the NWC women's top times.

Click here for the NWC men's top times.