Jan. 7, 2011
ATLANTA – In their first meets of the New Year, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads will head to the state of Florida where they will go head-to-head with No. 5 Florida men and No. 6 Florida women on Friday night followed by a tri meet at Florida State with UNC-Wilmington on Saturday afternoon.
“We are very excited to get back into meet mode again,” said Head Coach Courtney Shealy Hart, “and looking forward to swimming against the defending national champions in Florida and a great ACC team in FSU. We have been working really hard in preparation, so I am excited to see us finally race.”
Friday’s meet will kick off with the divers at 2:30 p.m. in Gainesville, while the swimming portion of the meet will start at 5 p.m., an hour earlier than originally scheduled. This meet marks the first time that the women’s teams have gone head to head against each other, while the men have met 42 times previously the last one-on-one situation coming in Atlanta in 2009, a 161-123 victory for the Gators.
The Jackets will travel after the meet to Tallahassee, Fla. where they will look to take on ACC foe Florida State and UNC-Wilmington. The Florida State men are currently ranked 19th in the collegeswimming.com poll while the women snuck into 25th place last week. The men have met 32 times head-to-head in the past with the Jackets taking just one victory while the Florida State women have earned eight-straight wins over the Tech women.
The Lady Jackets, however, are undefeated against UNC-Wilmington with their lone meeting coming in the 2008-09 season at Virginia Tech. The Jackets swept the Seahawks 198-102 on the women’s side and 197-100 on the men’s side. Overall the men are 3-5 against UNC-W.
Tech has already met with UF and FSU this season at the Georgia Tech Invitational back on November 19-21. Florida earned a third place showing on the women’s side while taking second among the men while the Florida State men took home the victory while the women came in second to Texas A&M.
