BATON ROUGE, La.- The LSU swimming and diving team will host its first home meet of the season against Auburn on Friday at the LSU Natatorium. The diving portion of the meet will begin at 2:00 p.m. and the swimming events will follow at 3:00 p.m. Admission to the event is free, and the first 100 students will receive free jambalaya.
The women’s squad (2-0) is looking for its second win in conference play, and the men’s team will host its first dual meet of the season.
“I think there is a lot of excitement on our team to have Auburn come in. (Auburn) is one of the teams that has had a really successful past in the conference and the NCAA,” said LSU swimming coach Dave Geyer.
When you open up your SEC schedule against a team like that, you create a lot of energy on the pool deck right now which is exciting. I think we’re excited to race and go head-to-head with them and see where we line up early in the season. This is a couple of meets into (the season) for the women, so we’re expecting things to be a little bit sharper and fresh. For the men, this is our first dual meet as a team, so it will be interesting to see how we respond and come together and support each other through 16 events all the way to the end. We’re ready to race.”
Senior Colleen O’Neil leads the women’s team with four individual victories in the fly, tallying two more first place finishes in the medley relay. Seniors Leah Troskot and Kara Kopcso each have four top-three finishes under their belts.
The LSU men’s swim team is led by senior Logan Rysemus, who garnered two individual wins in the 100 fly and 100 back, as well as a first place finish in the 200 relay at the FGCU Classic. Senior Brandon Goldman also claimed second place in the 400 IM and the 200 back.
The men’s and women’s diving teams are both slated to open up competition in their first event of the season. Men’s diver Matthew Phillip returns for his sophomore campaign after he set the fourth-highest scores in school history on both three-meter and platform his freshman year. Women’s sophomore diver Rileigh Knox returns after qualifying for NCAA Zone Regionals and is poised for a breakout year.
“We’re looking forward to (the meet),” said LSU diving coach Doug Shaffer. “For the divers, this is our first shot to compete. We’ve been training really well all year long. We’re excited to have Auburn come in and have the opportunity to compete in our pool, and we’re going to stay on track with what we’ve been doing all year long. We’re just going to go out there and do our best.”
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