KNOXVILLE, Tenn.- Eagles gear up for their mid-season event at the three-day Tennessee Invitational in the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.
Coming off a successful weekend with back-to-back combined team wins against Milligan University (258-152) and Lees-McRae College (286-118), Carson-Newman swim heads to Knoxville, Tenn. this Thursday through Saturday for the Tennessee Invitational.
"Our goal moving forward is to take what we did this past weekend and utilize that. For us, it's making sure that we are taking something away from this meet," head swim coach Ben Young said.
The three-day invite begins early Nov. 17 at 10 a.m., and there are nine total teams competing throughout the meet. Aside from Carson-Newman, who will only participate in the swimming portion of the meet, Tennessee, Duke (diving only), Florida Gulf Coast (women's diving only), South Carolina (diving only), Georgia Southern (women's diving only), Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia will all be competing in the invitational.
Carson-Newman men's and women's swim will both face off against four nationally ranked teams in the invite. On the women's side, Virginia is ranked first, and the Lady Vols are seventh, while Michigan and North Carolina are ranked No. 14 and No. 17 respectively. For the men, the Eagles will go head-to-head with No. 9 Virginia, No. 13 Tennessee, No. 16 Michigan, and No. 23 North Carolina at the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.
"How this meet is set up, it's a very, very fast meet with the four other teams that are going to be there. The goal is to just swim our races and to make sure we are realizing that it takes a lot to swim into finals, both in conference and at nationals, so we are going to have to get up and swim fast," Young said.
The invite will be scored like dual meets on a team-vs-team basis rather than an overall winner between the teams swimming. The events will be held as prelims/finals events aside from relays and the 1650-yard freestyle. Finals will be in A/B format, and each team will be able to advance up to three swimmers to the A final. The swimmers will be limited to only four scoring events.
"At the end of the day, our goal is to make sure that we are doing what we need to do as a team, not necessarily focusing on racing against four other very fast Division I programs. It's a fast pool, and it's going to be a great atmosphere. I'm looking forward to seeing what the team can do," Young said.
The meet will be streamed live on SEC Network+. Stay up to date on cneagles.com.
