BATON ROUGE — The LSU swimming and diving teams will begin their three-meet home stand at 4 p.m. (CST), Wednesday as the Tigers welcome the Kentucky Wildcats to the LSU Natatorium for a pair of Southeastern conference dual meets.
The men’s competition will feature a matchup of nationally-ranked squads. The Tigers (2-1, 1-1 SEC) enter the meet ranked 19th in the latest College Swim Coaches Association of America poll, while the Wildcats (1-3, 0-1 SEC) are 24th.
The women’s team (1-2-1, 0-2-1 SEC) is coming off its first dual-meet victory of the season at Florida Atlantic and will look to earn its first conference win against Kentucky (1-3, 0-1 SEC).
“It’s exciting to open our 2009 home schedule with a quality SEC opponent,” LSU head coach Adam Schmitt said. “It’s going to be great to have them race in our building, and we’ll see how it goes. Overall, I think our team needs to start focusing on what we need to do in order to be the team we want to be in six weeks at the SEC Championships.”
The LSU swimmers returned from Boca Raton, Fla., last week in victorious fashion as both teams won their respective meets versus the Florida Atlantic Owls. The LSU men captured all 11 races they competed in, and seven different athletes recorded victories in individual competition.
The sophomore duo of Clint Hallum and Hannes Heyl paced the Tigers with two event titles apiece. Hallum secured victories in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle races, while Heyl took first in the 50 free and 100 backstroke.
Sophomore Jane Trepp spearheaded the women’s squad, registering a pair of victories with first-place finishes in the 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke.
The LSU divers will jump right back into competition after wrapping up the three-day Tennessee Invitational Monday. Senior Niko Dalman highlighted the Tiger efforts, posting top-10 finishes in all three events. The two-time All-American placed fourth in the platform competition, sixth in the one-meter springboard and eighth in the three-meter.
In addition, freshman Matt Vieke qualified for the final rounds of both springboard events and posted a 14th-place finish in the platform.
The Kentucky dual meet is the first of three consecutive home meets for LSU. The Tigers will face Florida State Saturday and Delta State one week later, Jan. 17.