BATON ROUGE – The LSU swimming and diving team is set to take on the Kentucky Wildcats tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. CT. The meet will be held at the Lancaster Aquatic Center in Lexington. Both the men and women are 2-1 going into the meet.
“We had a phenomenal week of training,” explained LSU swimming head coach Dave Geyer. “We had some high-quality training. It’s a weird week for us having two competitions this week. Kentucky is really strong on the women’s side, and their men are getting there as well.”
In the pool, the men will be leaning on the backstroke events for crucial points. Both Karl Luht and Thomas Smith rank 16th nationally in the 100 and 200-yard backstroke, respectively.
“It’s similar to our competition with Navy earlier this season where they have some strengths where we might not be as strong and vice versa. It’s about how we can absorb some of those points that we will miss out on. Backstroke is definitely a strength for us, everywhere else there are going to be some very tight races.”
Meanwhile, the women are coming out of a strong week of training and will look to capitalize and come back home 3-1.
“The same concept applies on the women’s side. Our sprint freestyle has been coming along pretty well, and our butterflies can have some good races as well.”
In their last meet, Summer Spradley, Haylee Knight, Leyre Casarin, and Grace Horton defeated Florida in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:32.73.
The diving team will look to keep its undefeated streak alive. Juan Celaya-Hernandez and Lizzie Cui are undefeated this season and have only lost one event in dual-meet competition since the beginning of last season.
Celaya-Hernandez has been named SEC Men’s Diver of the Week twice this season, and Cui has been the SEC Women’s Diver of the Week once. Both have broken two pool records this season, as well.
“We are really looking forward to our first away SEC competition versus Kentucky,” said head diving coach Doug Shaffer. “Anytime we travel, it gives us an opportunity to compete in an unfamiliar facility. This challenges us and helps us prepare for other competitions throughout the season. Kentucky is a good program and we look forward to an excellent dual meet.”
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Order of events:
400 medley relay
1000 free
200 free
100 back
100 breast
100 fly
50 free
-Diving-
100 free
200 back
200 breast
500 free
100 fly
-Diving-
200 IM
400 free relay