The Auburn University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams kick-off their 2015-16 season with a road trip to the Alabama Aquatic Center to face their fierce in-state, Southeastern Conference Tide rivals of the University of Alabama.
The meet is set to start at 2pm Central and even fans from afar can dial-in to the action. The SEC Network will be live-streaming the dual meet and it will also be streamed on Watch ESPN, the web TV channel/mobile app.
The Auburn men’s team iscoming off of a 3rd-place finish at last year’s SEC Championships and the Tide men posting their first top-10 NCAA finish since 1994. On the women’s side, Auburn h placed 18th at last year’s NCAA and the Tide women posted their best national finish in more than a decade with a 29th-place finish.
The Auburn men are 25-8 all-time versus Alabama, and while the Tigers have been dominant lately (Alabama’s last win was in the fall of 2010), the Crimson Tide have been closing the gap in a hurry at the SEC and National levels in the last two years. That’s thanks in large part to an Alabama sprinter (Kristian Gkolomeev – though he missed the team’s first meet) to match up against the Auburn powerhouse.
“Auburn is Auburn,” senior All-American Alabama swimmer Brett Walsh said of today’s meet. “It’s always going to be one of those super hyped meets. On the guy’s side especially, the last time we saw them was at the national championship meet when they clipped us by six points, so it was a real nail biter.”
“We are really looking forward to getting back to some solid short-course racing,” Auburn head coach Brett Hawke said. “The team is really excited to test where they are training-wise. To get a taste of competition starting with Alabama is exciting.”
