Sept. 18, 2007
2007-08 Swimming and Diving Schedules in PDF Format
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University Park, Pa. - Penn State head swimming coach Bill Dorenkott today announced the schedules for the upcoming season for both the men's and women's swimming and diving teams. The schedules, which have only a few minor differences between the men and women, feature three home meets, all three of which will be for both the men and women. Two of those home meets are in October and November, while the other is in January.
"This is a big year with U.S. Olympic Trials coming up in late June. We have 20 individuals currently qualified for the meet and would like to send between 4-6 athletes to the finals at Trials," said Dorenkott. "I believe that is a realistic goal coming off of a great summer of training and racing."
The Nittany Lions will open the season with a dual meet against West Virginia for the fourth straight season on Thursday, October 18. After a three-week layoff, both teams will then host a quad meet with Virginia, Michigan State and Purdue all coming to Happy Valley on November 9-10. The Nittany Lions will then enter into winter break by attending a pair of larger meets, beginning with the three-day Hoosierland Open Invitational the weekend after the home quad meet from November 15-17. That meet will be hosted by Indiana in Bloomington, Ind. Following that, both Nittany Lion squads will swim and dive at the Princeton "Big Al" Invitational, which is another three-day meet and will be held from November 30-December 2 in Princeton, N.J.
After a brief break for the winter holidays, the swimming teams will depart for their annual winter training trip to Naples, Fla. at the beginning of January. While the swimming teams are training, the diving teams will once again compete at the Georgia Diving Invitational in Athens, Ga. January 4-6. While on their training trip to Florida, the swimming teams will compete in a tri meet in Naples against Florida Gulf Coast University, a first-year Division 1 member, and JUCO power Indiana River Community College, where women's team senior Clare Clemens competed before matriculating to Penn State. The women will be competing against both schools while the men will be in just a dual meet with Indian River CC, as Florida Gulf Coast only sponsors women's swimming.
After returning from the Florida training trip, the Nittany Lions will have three remaining meets to tune up for Big Ten Championships. That trifecta of meets begins with a quad meet for the women against Pittsburgh, Maryland and Villanova hosted by Pittsburgh January 18-19 while the men will also compete at that meet against those same three teams as well as Missouri. The final home meet of the season will come on Friday, January 25 when both team host West Chester at McCoy Natatorium, which will also be Senior Day.
From that point, the women will travel to Rutgers for a dual meet the following day on Saturday, January 26 while the men will travel to Ann Arbor, Mich. for a tri meet the following weekend, February 1-2 against Michigan and Ohio State.
Big Ten Championships for the women will be February 21-23 and will be hosted by Ohio State. The Men's Big Ten Championships will be the following weekend, February 27-March 1 at Michigan. NCAA Zone A Diving Championships for both men and women will be March 7-9 in Buffalo, N.Y. The NCAA Championships for the women will be March 20-22, also in Columbus, Ohio while the Men's NCAA Championships are the following weekend, March 27-29 in Federal Way, Wash.
"Our focus as a program is on three meets this year, Olympic Trials, NCAA's and Big Ten's," said Dorenkott. ":For each individual, the focus will be a little bit different depending on their goals. As a team, we want to carry on our momentum from the summer.
"The schedule from October through June presents us with some great racing opportunities to gauge our preparation for our focus meets," Dorenkott continued. "The season is most definitely a marathon and was put together with the idea of peaking mentally, physically and emotionally when it counts the most."
The women's team went 11-0 in dual meets last year while the men went 7-7. The women finished third at Big Ten's and are the only team in the Big Ten to finish in the top three at Big Ten's in each of the last seven years. The men's team placed seventh at Big Ten's and qualified the most swimmers to NCAAs since 2002. The women finished 26th at NCAAs. A total of 20 members of both the men's and women's teams have already qualified for U.S. Olympic Trials next June in Omaha, Neb. while two other swimmers have qualified for their respective countries' Olympic Trials as well.