The Western Kentucky University swimming and diving team is heading to different places for weekend competitions, as 20 swimmers will go to Knoxville, Tenn., for the AT&T Winter National Championships and the diving team travels to Oxford, Ohio, for the Miami (OH) Invite.
Both competitions take place Thursday, Dec. 5 until Saturday, Dec. 7 with various prelim and final start times.
SWIMMING
Select WKU swimmers will head to the University of Tennessee’s Allen Jones Aquatic Center for the AT&T Winter National Championships, taking on some of the country’s best swimmers in the weekend’s events.
“We are very excited to go to Knoxville for the USA Swimming Short-Course National Championships,” WKU head coach Bruce Marchionda said. “It gives a lot of our swimmers an opportunity to compete against some of the best swimmers in the country and see how they do against that kind of competition. We are looking to represent WKU on a great note and get some kids back in the consolation finals or finals, and just be visible at this type of meet.”
Each of the heats begins at 8 a.m. CT with finals starting at 4 p.m. CT.
The Hilltoppers and Lady Toppers will be up against numerous collegiate teams, including California who won the NCAA Championship last year on the women’s side. Marchionda looks to have swimmers like Heitor Rodrigues, Allie Duff, Claire Conlon and Maggie Patterson get back to the nights’ finals.
Joining the WKU swimmers will be former Lady Topper and Olympian Claire Donahue. The Lenoir City, Tenn., native will be close to home as she preps for Duel in the Pool that takes place in less than three weeks in Scotland.
“She has been doing well,” said Marchionda. “She had a great meet in Minnesota about three weeks ago and actually had a lifetime best in the 200 butterfly. At this point in the season, it is a great feat, so we are hoping for two lifetime bests in the short-course nationals and use it as a tuneup for the Duel in the Pool and represent the United States in that meet. This competition is as good as it gets as the United States swimming is so strong. It will be interesting as it is a little bit different than the long course she will have to compete in to make the Olympic team and other national teams.”
For more information and links to the live results, visit USASwimming.org.
DIVING
The WKU divers head to Oxford, Ohio, for the Miami (OH) Invite from Thursday until Saturday.
The diving portion begins on Thursday at 1 p.m. CT with platform. One-meter dives for the men and three-meter dives for the women start on Friday with prelims at 1 p.m. CT and finals at 6:30 p.m. CT before switching events for Saturday’s finale at the same times.
“Hopefully we will have someone in each final events—that is the goal—but this should be a good competition,” WKU diving coach Chelsea Ale said. “It will be good experience for the divers to get some good competition since so far this year we haven’t really had a whole lot of good diving competition. It will help us see where they stand. It will help validate school records to see where they are and if scores that they have now will be close to those in the invite because it will be stronger competition.”
At the event, WKU will be up against Clavadistats del Sol (Scottsdale, Ariz.), Denison University, Longhorn Aquatics, Marlins Diving Club (Greenwich, Conn.), Miami (OH), Middle Tennessee Diving, Ohio State Diving Club, Redhawk Elite Diving Academy (Centerville, Ohio), San Antonio Divers, Team A&M Diving (College Station, Texas), Tennessee, Cincinnati, Illinois and Wright State.
Many of the WKU divers will be competing for the first-time ever in a platform event. However, Ale thinks it is good preparation for the Conference USA Championships beginning in late February.
“The tower event will be very exciting because I think (Giorgi Meyer) is the only person to do tower in a meet, and I think that was only one time, so it will be very interesting,” said Ale. “It is new to almost all of them, but since we have it in conference, we are actually going to have them compete and practice it. They have been training very hard for it, so hopefully it will go well. It will definitely be a learning experience for all of them. It will be an eye opener getting ready for conference.”
“The good thing is that whoever does the best in the tower events, because it has never been done before, will have the school record in tower, which is kind of exciting,” continued Ale.
For more information on the Miami (OH) Invite and live results, visit muredhawks.com.
For all the latest news and information on WKU swimming and diving, visit WKUSports.com or follow the program on Twitter via @WKUSwimDive and @WKUDiving and by liking the team on Facebook through WKU Swimming and Diving.
This release was provided to SwimSwam courtesy of WKU Swimming and Diving.
