BATON ROUGE — The LSU swimming teams will head to Chapel Hill, N.C. to compete at the Nike Cup Invitational Nov. 20-22 in the final competition of the fall season.
The meet will be hosted by the University of North Carolina and will be held at the Maurice J. Koury Natatorium. Eleven institutions will be in attendance, including North Carolina, Clemson, East Carolina, Kentucky, Kenyon, LSU, Michigan (women), North Carolina State, Syracuse, Tennessee (men) and Virginia Tech.
Events get underway Thursday morning at 10 a.m. with the preliminaries of the women’s 200-yard freestyle relay. Twelve other events will be featured throughout the day, including the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley, 50-yard freestyle and the 400-yard medley relay. Friday’s schedule will follow a similar format but will include 14 events before wrapping up Saturday afternoon.
LSU will look to continue its recent success at the Nike Cup Invitational. Last year, 37 Tiger swimmers set personal-best times, while All-American Stephanie Smith shattered three school records, including two of her own, en route to a fifth-place finish for both squads. In 2001, the LSU men were just shy of winning the prestigious event, finishing second to the host Tar Heels. The LSU women finished third. North Carolina has won the last two meets.
Last November, Smith broke the school record in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:47.75. She later followed that up with a mark of 9:50.51 in the 1000- yard freestyle, also a school record. Not to be done, the senior shattered her old time in the 1650-yard freestyle swimming the event in 16:21.41. While Smith is questionable to participate this weekend due to a neck injury, several Lady Tigers have had some promising swims in the first half of the season. Lindsay Staak will look to lead that group. Staak has posted three individual wins this fall season and has been the leader of several relay events for the Lady Tigers. Lauren Harvey has also had a standout junior season. Harvey holds three first-place finishes on the season, including several impressive swims in the 100- yard and 200-yard breaststroke. Other Lady Tigers looking to make an impact this weekend include Donna Leslie and Margaret Beadle.
The LSU men (1-5, 0-3 SEC) will count on senior All-American Matthew Rucker, Jan Minartz, Chris Stanczyk and Myles Jaynes. In his last outing, Rucker captured two events in a loss to South Carolina. The River Ridge, La. native won the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard breaststroke. Minartz had an impressive Nike Cup in 2002, swimming personal-best times in the 200-yard freestyle (1:40.85) and 500-yard freestyle (4:28.81). Stanczyk enters his final Nike Cup with aspirations of top finishes in several freestyle events. He set a career-best mark in the 50-yard freestyle in 2002, a time of 20.95. Justin Boyes will solidify LSU’s point chances in the 200-yard and 400-yard individual medley. Up and coming sophomore, Ross Hebert will look to make an impact in his second Nike Cup appearance.
The Nike Cup will record NCAA Championship 16-place scoring and feature three heats of finals: consolation finals (places 13-20), finals (places 5-12) and a super final (places 1-4). Relay teams will be limited to three per event.
“Our goal is to get as many “B” cut NCAA times as we can,” said LSU head coach Jeff Cavana. “We are looking forward to this meet since it is the last competition until January.”