Aug 28, 2013
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt women’s swimming will open their season with two meets at home against Southeastern Conference powerhouses Auburn and Texas A&M, as was announced today by Head Coach Jeremy Organ. The Commodores will host three meets over the course of the season before heading to SEC’s in mid-February.
“Opening the season against Auburn and A&M is going to be very challenging, but when we look at our season everything is in preparation for SEC’s at the end,” said Organ. “So for us to get two teams of that high a caliber right off the bat will benefit us come championship time. We have a really young team this year so to swim against teams like that early in the year will provide good experience for us.”
The `Dores will kick off the season on September 27 when they welcome Auburn to Nashville and the Centennial Sportsplex. The Tigers finished 2013 at No. 3 in the national rankings and a fifth-place finish at the conference championship before sending 14 athletes to the NCAA Championships.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for Organ’s squad, as Texas A&M comes into town on October 12. Last season the Aggies were the SEC runners-up behind eventual national champion Georgia.
Vanderbilt will remain on the road for the rest of the semester with trips to Tulane (Nov. 2), Libety (Nov. 8) and the Georgia Tech Invitational (Nov. 21-24).
The Commodores will start things back up on January 18 when they host both West Florida and Liberty, in the first tri-meet of the season.
From there it is back on the road for the remainder of the season for the `Dores as they prep for SEC’s.
The team heads to Bowling Green, Ky., to take on Western Kentucky, Marshall and Cumberland (Jan. 24-25). Then it is off to the state of Arkansas for back-to-back meets against Arkansas Little Rock (Jan. 31) and a tri-meet against Arkansas and Kansas.
“The second half of the year allows us to start to fine tune a lot of our technique and take a look at the smaller things,” said Organ. “The idea is to get the team ready for situations they might not feel so comfortable in. After that we will start getting into our taper going into SEC’s.”The 2014 SEC Championships will be held in Athens, Ga., from February 18-22. The NCAA Championships run a month later in Minneapolis, Minn., from March 20-22.
“The SEC is a great a great conference to be in for swimming, it is without hesitation the best conference for our sport,” Organ said. “So its great to be there and it provides us with a level that is constantly getting higher and higher and so we need to try and keep up and achieve more and more each year.”