Jan. 3, 2008
Florida Gulf Coast Dual Meet and Georgia Diving Invite Notes
University Park, Pa. - The men's and women's swimming and diving teams will get back into the pool for competition for the first time in a month and for the first time in 2008 this weekend as both teams will split up for their first meets of the new year.
The diving team will compete at the Georgia Diving Invitational beginning today, January 3 and running through tomorrow, January 4. The meet actually lasts until Saturday but the springboard portions of the meet will be today and Friday. Meanwhile, the swimming teams departed on Wednesday for sunny Florida for their annual winter training trip, during which they will compete in a tri-meet on Sunday in Naples, Fla. against Florida Gulf Coast University and Indian River Community College, a national power in the junior college ranks.
The Georgia Diving Invitational will feature some of the top divers in the country and some of the top diving teams in the country. It will be a non-team scoring event. In addition to Penn State, the field includes host Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Kentucky, Arkansas, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Virginia, North Carolina, East Carolina, Drexel, Clemson and SMU. Live scoring of the meet will be available on Georgia's athletic website, georgiadogs.com.
Justin Bonner and the Nittany Lion divers will be at the Georgia Diving Invitational this week. |
The swimming teams will be in Florida for the next week leading up the start of the spring semester at Penn State. On Sunday, January 6, the women will compete in a tri-meet with Florida Gulf Coast, which is located in nearby Fort Myers, Fla., and Indian River Community College, which was the junior college of current Nittany Lion senior Clare Clemens. The men will have a dual meet against Indian River CC, as FGCU does not have a men's team. This meet will allow both Spencer Maglich, a native of Sarasota, Fla., and Chris Sullivan, a native of Naples, Fla. to compete near or in their hometowns.
This will be the swimming teams' first meet since their dominating performance at the Princeton 'Big Al' Invitational the first weekend of December when both teams ran away with first place finishes and swam to several new NCAA cuts as well as a pair of school records and a new Big Ten record by Kaitlin O'Brien in the 400 IM.
These meets will be the beginning of the final month of preparation leading up to Big Ten Championships in February. Following these two meets, both teams will have just three more meets remaining before Big Ten's.