Video: Jordan Taylor Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The 2021-22 season continues for Carson-Newman Swimming as the Eagles take part in the sixth annual Blue v. Orange intrasquad meet Friday night. Currently, the series advantage goes to the Orange team after they were able to break the tie following last year's event.

Start time for this year's competition is scheduled for 5:30 p.m from the MSAC in Jefferson City, Tennessee. This year's teams will be led by the Eagles assistant coaches of Ksenia Neydenova for the Blue team and Sara Duarte Garcia for the Orange team, respectively.

The annual intrasquad usually is the first event the Eagles take part in as they prepare for the remainder of the fall season. However, this year's Blue v. Orange meet will be the second overall event for head coach Taylor's team after they wrapped up a throttling performance in Kingsport last weekend. The women's team finished with 1264 points, 781 points ahead of second-place UNC Pembroke. Meanwhile, the men's team for C-N completed dominated their competition as they claimed 1366.5 points after two days, finishing 973.5 points ahead of second-place Milligan.

"Blue versus Orange is always a highly competitive meet and I expect nothing less come Friday night. We typically try to have it kick off our season so that the athletes get a feel for racing beyond just what we do in practice, but coming off the King Invitational, this will still prove what our team has learned thus far," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said. "One of the unique aspects to the meet is having our GAs and senior captains be the ones selecting and drafting teammates for the team, and then placing them into certain events throughout the night. We try to give them a sense of what goes into a race selection, and I think so far in all the previous meets, we've seen that be true."

Last year's intrasquad event lived up to the hype as it came down to the last races before Orange was able to claim the 214-206 combined score victory, including a 122-88 victory on the men's side of competition. The upside for the Blue squad last year was winning the women's side of competition, 118-92.

As with previous matchups, the Blue v. Orange event will be an inter-squad meet in which C-N teammates battled it out in dual-meet format over a total of 22 races consisting of four relay events and 18 individual swims.

The format for the intrasquad meet will require the senior captains to draft their own teams and look at the strengths and weaknesses when generating and choosing their events. It gets the team starting to think a little more when picking lineups, giving them an opportunity and insight on the coaching thought process which Jordan Taylor and the coaches go through each week.

"On paper, it may look like Blue or Orange may be the odds on favorite, but there is always the x-factor of who will show up and compete for their team. This gives a sense for the athletes for when we get to bigger meets such as Conference where the team truly relies on everyone's performance," Taylor said. "I think with all the trash talk and discussion about this year's event, it will be full of highly competitive swims and it could easily come down to the last event of the night as it did last year."

Last year, the highlight of the night came during the rarely seen 100-yard individual medley, a race only seen in competition like this one. In the women's 100-yard IM, senior Meredith Ginn (Ocala, Fla.) came in at 57.55 which set a new school record as she came in about two seconds ahead of second place finisher, junior Kailee Morgan (Greenville, S.C.).

When the men took to the pool for the 100-yard IM, Raphael Lima continued his quick and historic season as an Eagle by setting his second school record of the year with a time of 50.32, four seconds ahead of second-place Joey Clemmer (Murfreesboro, Tenn.).

The men were outstanding on both teams, but none stood out more completely than Matthew George (Manchester, England). George was the anchor for the second-place men's 400 yd freestyle relay which finished in 3:04.02, came in second to Lima in the men's 200-yd freestyle in 1:43.56, collected a top-three finish in the men's 100-yd backstroke with a time of 52.91, another second-place finish in the men's 100-yd butterfly in 51.48, and a solid 4:45.77 victory in the men's 500 yd freestyle.

The other standout female swimmer on the night was CJ Jensen (Copenhagen, Denmark) who led the Blue women's team to a 118-92 victory over Orange. Jensen took home victories in the women's 400-yd IM (4:26.01), second in the women's 100-yd backstroke in 56.83, and a third-place finish in the women's 100-yd butterfly in 58.97. Jensen topped off her night being the starter for the women's 200-yd medley relay team which took second with a time of 1:45.68.

"I think this year's teams are evenly matched and it should be full of some good competition as athletes get back into the swing of competing at meets almost every weekend," Taylor said. "I know there are some athletes who want to show out and back up their words, so I look forward to seeing what happens when the whistle blows and the event starts."

You can find live event updates on Twitter from @CN_Eagles as well as a full recap following the event on cneagles.com. Keep up with all things C-N Swimming via @CN_Eagles or @cnswim on Twitter and Instagram.

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