BATON ROUGE — After four straight road meets to begin the season, the LSU swimming and diving teams return to the LSU Natatorium to open the 2003- 04 home schedule Friday evening at 6 p.m. when South Carolina comes to Baton Rouge in another pivotal SEC dual meet.
The home opener is being billed as “Pack the Nat” night at the LSU Natatorium. A $150 cash prize will be presented to the loudest and rowdiest crowd of the night and a $50 prize will go to the winner of the best cannonball following the meet. Admission is free to the public.
The LSU men enter Friday’s meet coming off of a split against Delta State and Southwest Missouri State two weeks ago in Cleveland, Miss. The Tigers defeated the host Statesmen 92-58 and then dropped a 58-55 decision to Southwest Missouri State. The Lady Tigers swept both squads last time to improve to 2-3 on the season.
Since the start of the 2003-04 season, juniors Lindsay Staak and Lauren Harvey have led the LSU women. The two have combined for four individual wins on the season and both have played a significant role in freestyle and medley relays. On the men’s side, Jan Minartz has shined in the past two meets, picking up two first-place finishes in the 500-yard freestyle and 1000-yard freestyle.
The South Carolina men and women both have 1-2 records on the season. The Gamecocks feature 16 letter-winners on the men’s side and 15 on the women’s side from teams that finished 20th and 24th at the 2003 NCAA Championships, respectively. LSU is a combined 7-3 all time against the Gamecocks. The two teams haven’t met since the 1995-96 season when LSU defeated both squads at the LSU Natatorium. Earlier in the year, both the Tigers and Gamecocks fell to Clemson.
“This should be the best meet of the year for us,” said head coach Jeff Cavana. “There are a couple of events that we match up better than them and whether we win or lose will depend on those match-ups. We are better in stroke events, while they are a little bit better than us in free events.”
The LSU swimmers will travel to compete in the Nike Cup Invitational in Chapel Hill, N.C. Nov. 20-22, while the Tiger divers will head to the Minnesota Diving Invitational the weekend of Nov. 21-23.