COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Alabama men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams begin competition at the 2016 Southeastern Conference Championships on Tuesday, Feb. 16 in Columbia, Mo.
The Crimson Tide men finished fifth last season while the women were ninth. Alabama’s men return three individual SEC Champions – Kristian Gkolomeev (50 and 100 freestyle, 2015), Connor Oslin (100 backstroke, 2015) and Anton McKee (200 breaststroke, 2014). The men also return every leg from their 2015 SEC champion 200 freestyle and 400 medley relays.
In addition to the returning individual SEC champions, sophomore Luke Kaliszak comes into this week ranked second nationally while sophomore Christopher Reid is ninth in the 100 backstroke.
The last two years, in addition bringing home individual and relay SEC titles, Alabama has broken double-digit school records at the SEC Championships. That improvement, which has come up and down the Crimson Tide’s roster, has been instrumental in the Tide jumping up the conference and national standings.
“Our goal is to keep getting faster,” UA head coach Dennis Pursley said. “If we do that, it won’t be too far down the road before we are competing for championships.”
The Tide has already improved four school marks this season on the women’s side of the slate. Senior Emma Saunders broke the school 100 freestyle mark and bettered her 200 backstroke record during the Georgia Tech Fall Invitational in November. Sophomore Mia Nonnenberg broke the school 500 freestyle record and bettered her own 400 individual medley record at the same meet.
Nonnenberg is ranked sixth nationally in the 400 individual medley coming into this week.
The Crimson Tide gets things started on Tuesday with the women’s 1-meter and men’s 3-meter diving preliminaries as well as the championship finals of the men’s and women’s 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays.
The championships continue on through Saturday’s finals with prelims and finals each day.
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Swimming news courtesy of Alabama Swimming & Diving.
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