Courtesy: LSU Athletics
BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU women’s swimming and diving team are set to return to the LSU Natatorium Saturday to take on the Tulane Green Wave for the first home meet in over two months.
Fans are welcome to come cheer on the Tigers at the LSU Natatorium with pastalaya being served on a first-come first-serve basis.
The Tigers, coming off the two-month stint on the road, are ready to get back to the friendly confines. Head Swimming Coach Rick Bishop and head diving coach Doug Shaffer have been encouraged by the team’s performances during early season competition.
“Looking forward to hosting Tulane in the Nat this Saturday,” Shaffer said. “It’s another opportunity to get up and compete and challenge ourselves.”
LAST TIME OUT
On the swimming side, Bishop and his squad traveled to the Art Adamson Invitational held at the Rec Center Natatorium in Bryan-College Station, Texas. The women finished third in the meet with 564 points, while the men placed fourth with 410 points. LSU, compared to last year’s performance in the same meet, showed significant improvement with a bevy of personal bests and some swims supplanting others on the all-time top-10 list.
Brooks Curry, LSU’s first Olympic gold medalist for the program, finished the star-studded meet with two wins in the 50-yard free and 100-yard free. In the 50-free, Curry finished with a 19.09, which currently sits as the fastest time in the country. For the 100-free, he finished with a time of 42.30. His time for his leg of the 400-yard free relay improved his 100-free time to 42.10, which is the fourth-best time in the country.
Allison Tomsuden and Jolee Liles, both distance swimmers for the Tigers, showed significant improvement compared to their 1650-yard free entry times. Tomsuden improved her time by 34 seconds and Liles improved her time by 33 seconds. Both joined LSU’s all-time top-10 list for the event with Tomsuden’s time of 16:42.27 (No. 6) and Liles time of 16:35.51 (No. 4).
Liles qualified for two more ‘A’ finals in the 500-yard free and 400-yard IM. In the 500-free, she placed third with a time of 4:46.52 and third in the 400-IM with a final time of 4:17.14.
Katarina Milutinovich had one of her best performances in the purple and gold, qualifying for three ‘A’ finals in the prelim sessions. She finished in second place for the 200-yard free with a time of 1:46.84 and added two fourth place finishes in the 50-yard free and 100-yard back with respective times of 22.61 and 53.85. Natalie Kucsan also qualified for the ‘A’ final in the 100-free placing seventh with a time of 49.67.
Jadyn Jannasch added onto the Tigers who qualified for the ‘A’ final in the prelims, finishing sixth in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:15.72. Freshman Jenna Bridges impressed on the final day of the midseason meet, jumping into LSU’s top-10 list in the 200-yard fly with a time of 1:58.45.
Emil Hassling and Griffin Curtis also had strong performances for the Tigers, as the former finished in sixth place for the 200-yard IM ‘A’ final with a time of 1:45.80. The latter performed at a high level for his first midseason meet in the purple and gold. Curtis qualified for the ‘A’ final in the 200-yard back and placed fourth with a time of 1:44.46.
On the boards, Juan Celaya-Hernandez won the one-meter springboard final after placing third in the prelims. His performance led to his third SEC Male Diver of the Week honor of the season and his 16th throughout his LSU career.
For the women, Montserrat Gutierrez Lavenant and freshman Maggie Buckley had strong performances throughout the Texas Diving Invitational that consisted of five Olympians. Gutierrez Lavenant placed third on platform with a final score of 275.35. Buckley placed fifth with a final score of 254.80.
Gutierrez Lavenant claimed sixth place on the one-meter with a final score of 294.30.
ORDER OF EVENTS
200M Relay
1000 Free
200 Free
100 Back
100 Breast
200 Fly
50 Free
One-Meter Diving
100 Free
200 Back
200 Breast
500 Free
100 Fly
Three-Meter Diving
200 IM
400 Free Relay
LIVE STATS
Swimming results can be found on Meet Mobile
Diving: lsul.su/3xYOs5J
