BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU swimming and diving team will open the 2025-2026 season Saturday morning with the annual Purple & Gold Intrasquad at the LSU Natatorium.
This season will mark the Tigers’ fifth under the helm of head coach Rick Bishop and fourth under diving coach Drew Livingston.
“The Tiger intrasquad is an exciting kick off to the season,” said Coach Bishop. “Our team loves to compete. Splitting the team and having them compete against their training partners creates a fun and very competitive environment. We are looking forward to a spirited morning of racing and camaraderie.”
All fans are welcome to come see this season’s squad at 10 a.m. CT. Doors will open to the public one hour prior to the start of the meet. The first 50 fans will receive a free t-shirt.
Live stats will be available on the MeetMobile app and posted to LSUsports.net after the meet’s conclusion.
The Tigers returned a total of 30 athletes and brought in 12 newcomers. They are led by six captains. The three men’s captains are Junior Jere Hribar, Senior Carson Paul, and Senior Jacob Pishko. The three women’s captains are Senior Megan Barnes, Senior Michaela de Villiers, and Senior Sofia Sartori.
LSU is coming off a season where both the men’s and women’s teams finished seventh in the SEC. At the NCAA Championships, both squads finished in the top 25, with the men placing 19th and the women placing 22nd.
There are fourteen returning athletes – seven men and seven women – who competed at the NCAA Championships last season, three of whom earned individual top-25 finishes. Hribar placed seventh in the 100-free and 12th in the 50-free, Jovan Lekic finished eighth in the 500-free, and Paul took ninth in platform diving and 15th in 3-meter diving.
The Tigers will be back in action for the first official meet of the season, held Oct. 10-11 at the Robson & Lindsey Aquatics Center in Dallas, Texas, as they take part in the SMU Classic.