BATON ROUGE — With the SEC Championships in the books, the LSU swimming teams will turn their attention toward qualifying for the 2009 NCAA Championships as 10 swimmers travel to compete in Georgia’s Last Chance Meet, beginning Saturday at 9 a.m. (CST) in Athens, Ga., in hopes of improving their chances to reach the national meet in March.
Several swimmers and relay squads already find themselves in solid position to earn berths to NCAAs, but with a number of conference meets currently ongoing or yet to begin, LSU hopes to use this weekend to solidify its chances of receiving bids with an emphasis on relays.
Our relays look pretty good right now, LSU head coach Adam Schmitt said. But I think we can improve our chances of being invited to the NCAA Championships if we go just a little quicker. Breaking 14 school records at SECs is a great accomplishment, but now our focus goes toward NCAAs and representing LSU at the highest level.
The LSU men, who were ranked 17th in the final CSCAA poll of the year Thursday, are already in great shape to qualify for NCAAs in the medley relays and will focus on the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays this weekend.
The Tigers top time in the 200 freestyle relay this season is an NCAA B cut qualifying mark of 1 minute, 19.25 seconds, but the foursome of Hannes Heyl, Christoph Lubenau, Julius Gloeckner and Brandon Selts will shoot for a mark in the 1:18 range.
The 400 freestyle relay, which brings in a provisional time of 2:55.37, will go after a 2:54.90 with the group of Heyl, Lubenau, Gloeckner and Sean LeNeave. Furthermore, Heyl could make a push to break Schmitts school mark in the 100 free with his lead-off split in that relay.
The Lady Tigers left SECs with two very strong times in both the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays and will look to go faster at the Last Chance Meet. The 200 medley group of Monica McJunkin, Jane Trepp, Katie Gilmore and Katherine Noland currently ranks 10th in the nation with a school-record time of 1:38.30 but needs to shave only five tenths of a second off that time to secure the NCAA automatic qualifying standard.
The women also hold one of the faster 200 freestyle relay times in the country with another school-record mark of 1:29.54 but will attempt to top that mark as well. In addition, the womens 400 freestyle and medley relays will look to improve their program-record times for NCAA consideration.
In individual competition, senior Julius Gloeckner, the SEC Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year, may swim the 200 individual medley, while fellow senior Brandon Selts is scheduled to go in the 50 free. Junior Sean LeNeave may see action in the 200 free.
On the womens side, McJunkin, Gilmore and Noland should look to improve their status in both the 50 and 100 frees. Trepp is scheduled to compete the 100 free, and sophomore Kannon Betzen, who will swim the breaststroke leg of the 400 medley relay, could take part in the 100 breast.