Nov. 18, 2010
ATLANTA – For the second consecutive season and the sixth time in the last 10 years, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads will host the Georgia Tech Fall Invitational at the Aquatic Center over the weekend of Nov. 19-21. The field of 14 schools participating in this year’s meet is the most since 11 schools took part in 2001.
“We are very excited to host the Georgia Tech Invite this weekend,” said head coach Courtney Shealy Hart. “We will be hosting some of the top teams from all over the country that will provide tough competition for our swimmers. Our goal to produce some NCAA qualifying times and dives as we bring our first semester to a close.”
Partaking in the three-day meet are the men’s and women’s teams from Clemson, Florida, Florida Atlantic, Florida State, Gardner Webb and NC State as well as the women’s teams of Air Force, Florida Gulf Coast, Miami and Texas A&M, Michigan State’s men’s squad and the diving corps from Auburn and Emory.
Six ranked teams and four teams receiving votes will attend the illustrious meet, according to the latest Collegeswimming.com poll. On the men’s side of things, No. 4 Florida, No. 7 Auburn and No. 20 Florida State along with RV NC State and Michigan State will compete while the women’s top ranked programs are represented by No. 4 Florida, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 10 Auburn and RV Florida State and Miami.
Tech has hosted a fall invitational for the last seven seasons, but in 2008 and 2006 only divers participated. Last season at the invitational, both the Tech men’s and women’s squads finished in fourth place in the field of seven teams.
The meet will kick off Friday, Nov. 19 with the 200-Free Relay preliminaries at 10 a.m. Friday’s events include the 500-Free, 200-IM, 50-Free 400-Medley Relay and the women’s 1-meter and men’s 3-meter dive. After the preliminary events in the morning, the finals will take place starting at 6 p.m.
Saturday’s events will once again begin at 10 a.m. The day will start off with the 200-medley followed by the 400-IM, 100-Fly, 200-Free, 100-Breast, 100-Back, and the 800-Free Relay with the women’s 3-meter and men’s 1-meter diving mixed in. Finals will once again begin at 6 p.m.
Sunday will begin an hour earlier with a 9 a.m. start to the day kicking off with the 1,650-Free. Also taking place is the 200-Back, 100-Free, 200-Breast, 200-Fly, and platform diving. The morning will conclude with the 400-Free Relay prelims. Finals will start at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
*** Reminder to everyone that would like to attend on Saturday, the Georgia Tech football team will be taking on Duke at 1:30 p.m. on Senior Day. The parking deck at the CRC is also used for football parking so come early! There will be NO in-and-outs for parking that day, so keep this in mind if you would like to stay for the finals on Saturday night.
