NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two weeks after making its season debut, Vanderbilt swimming will face its first SEC competition of the campaign when the Commodores take on both host South Carolina and 13th-ranked Georgia on Friday. The meet is set to get underway at 3 p.m. CT at the USC Natatorium.
“We want to see improvements from our last competition,” head coach Jeremy Organ said. “And because we will be going up against SEC opponents, we want to gauge where we are at. I feel like we’re really starting to hit our groove in the water during practice, I think we’re going to see some good things on Friday afternoon.”
In the Dores’ season debut at Tulane on Sept. 27, Mercedes Traba won the 1,000 freestyle and also placed second in the 500 free while Aubrey Hull would claim the 100 backstroke—earning SEC Freshman-of-the-Week honors afterward for the effort—and fellow freshman Emily Constable was victorious in the 100 breaststroke in her collegiate debut.
But it was graduate transfer Reagan Mathieson who ended up leading Vandy in three different events after recording top-three results in the 100 free and 200 individual medley while also posting the program’s fastest 50 free time with her opening leg in the 200 free relay. Kailia Utley was runner-up in the 100 butterfly, while Jenna Ravarino (50 free) and Hannah Weissman (100 free) placed among the top three in their events as well.
While the Commodores have participated in the Gamecock Invitational each of the last two falls, this will mark the first time they have faced South Carolina in a head-to-head meet in Columbia since January 2015. Vandy faced the Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia, last season, the first time the two programs have met dating back to the 2014-15 campaign.
