WINGATE, N.C. – The Carson-Newman swim team, fresh off the sixth annual Blue v. Orange World Championships, will travel to Wingate, N.C. to face number four (men's) and two (women's) ranked Wingate Bulldogs on Oct. 23rd for a two-session dual-meet.
The last time the two sides met in dual-meet fashion, Wingate came to Mossy Creek as the nationally-ranked favorite as they battled for every point and would take the overall 333-297 victory. On the men's side, the Eagles would suffer their first home loss since the first-ever meet in 2013 as Wingate took a mere 158-157 men's side victory. Meanwhile, the Eagles saw their second straight home meet loss to Wingate on the women's side as the Bulldogs left Jefferson City as 175-140 victors.
"I think tonight was very competitive in every race, but it shows that no matter who you face or where you are, dual meets are going to be fast-paced and tightly contested," senior Matthew George said. "Now, we're able to push ahead and come together as one whole team. We want to cheer each other to success and I think a meet like the one against Wingate is a great place to start."
Carson-Newman came out of the gate strong, taking 10 out of the first 16 competitions between these nationally ranked squads. Halfway through competition, the Eagles held a slight 154-142 lead over the Bulldogs. Carson-Newman men's team led with a score of 82-66 while the women were slightly behind with a score of 72-76. However, the Bulldogs came out stronger than ever for the second session to come away with the victory.
The Eagles are fresh off a thunderous showing from the MSAC pool as they saw the sixth annual Blue v. Orange meet come and go. The Blue team, led by assistant coach Ksenia Naydenova, rebounded from their 2020 performance and tied the overall series at 3-3.
In the 2021 version of Eagles versus Eagles, Blue took home the 245-165 combined score victory, including sweeping both the men's and women's side of action. The men's action belonged to Blue as they swam their way to a 131-74 thumping of Orange. Meanwhile, the women's side was closely competitive all night long, but Blue pulled away late to take the 114-91 victory.
"It was great to see the teams competing tonight as you and I talked about, this event helps those athletes to get back into the habit of competitive swimming. Every race was tight and was closely contested even if the scores don't really reflect that," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said. "We talked about who would step up and help their team to compete and I think both sides show maximum effort out of everyone tonight. I think it gives us as coaches a tough challenge for who to pick in upcoming meets, but that's a good issue to have."
Wingate has seen competition in one meet this fall, that being the UIndy Invitational on October 9 and 10. The Bulldogs faced competition from UIndy, Grand Valley State, Lindenwood, and Nova Southeastern. The women finished behind the host UIndy (787.5) with 687 points while the men saw their spot behind UIndy (860) and Lindenwood (702) with 655.5 points and third place.
At the 2021 Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships, Wingate took second on both sides of the pool as they would only see the Royals from Queens (N.C.) place ahead of them. Year in and year out, it has been the Royals, Bulldogs, and Eagles claiming the top three spots at Conference.
"Going to Wingate will be a hostile environment as it always is, but we enjoy facing Wingate because we want to continue challenging ourselves to be the best we can," Taylor said. "Hopefully, we continue building upon what we have seen in the last two weekends and once everyone is back together, we hit the ground running preparing for Wingate"
Action will begin from the Wingate Natatorium on October 23 at 12 p.m. with the first of two sessions. The event will see the second session begin approximately at 5:00 p.m. from Wingate, N.C. Both sessions will have live stats to follow on Meet Mobile, but no video stream will be provided.
Be sure to keep up with the Eagles swim team all across C-N's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.
