BATON ROUGE — The 18th ranked LSU men’s (1-3, 1-1 SEC) and the 21st ranked women’s (2-2, 1-1 SEC) swimming and diving program will play host to both Texas A&M’s men (4-0) and 11th ranked women (3-0, 1-0 Big 12) on Saturday at 12 p.m. (CT) at the LSU Natatorium.
“The women’s team is phenomenal and were top-10 at the NCAA Championship last year,” Swimming Coach Dave Geyer said. “The way that they have preformed this year, there is no doubt in my mind that their goal is to be top-5 at the NCAA Championships. The men’s team is always a great dual-meet between us. They were top-15 at the NCAA’s last year, so we expect them to bring their best game as well.”
“It is all about racing. That is what dual-meets are about. It is about racing, getting your hand to the wall first and out-preforming them on the diving end of things. We’re just trying to get those wins. We just need to get our hands to the wall before they do.”
LSU will be honoring their six seniors as well prior to the meet. Swimmers Samantha Goates, Simon Diefenthal, Rick Duran, Martin Jungfleisch, Steffen Voelkel and diver Matt Vieke will be competing in the LSU Natatorium for the last time.
“One of the best things about this meet is that we get to honor our six seniors moving forward,” Geyer said. “I hope they can go out with great performances and fond memories of the program here. We want to salute them in the proper way.”
The Tigers and Aggies are two evenly matched squads, which breeds competition year in and year out, especially with the SEC Championships less than one month away.
The Aggies defeated the men 166-134 and the women 163-120 last season in College Station.
“Our rivalry with Texas A&M and their level of competition is something that we look forward to every year,” Diving Coach Shaffer said. “They are going to bring on the diving side some of the strongest and deepest competition that we’ve seen all year long. They have a male and a female who will probably be competing for a national championship later this year.”
Texas A&M, who will join the SEC next season, will add another quality opponent to arguably the strongest swimming and diving conference in the nation.
“Texas A&M is a strong program coming in,” Geyer said. “Of course within our conference it is always a quality competition. Right now with Texas A&M being out of conference, it is definitely one of the strongest meets on our lineup. It gives us a taste of how strong our conference will be next year.”
The swimmers will be competing as a team for the first time since the Tennessee Invitational in the middle of November. The divers will rejoin the swimmers after multiple top-10 performances in a stacked field at the Georgia Diving Invitational.
Admission to all LSU Swimming and Diving home meets is free and the Tigers will be welcoming members of Crawfish Aquatics and Tiger Aquatics also prior to the meet.
For more information on the LSU Swimming and Diving program, please visit LSUsports.net, follow @LSUSwimDive on Twitter or ‘like’ LSU Swimming and Diving on Facebook.