University of Tennessee Athletics
S&D Set to Battle Virginia
January 07, 2011 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Jan. 7, 2011
By Todd Mounce, Media Relations Graduate Assistant
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The 12th-ranked Tennessee women's swimming and diving team will look to continue its success and capture a fifth straight dual meet victory this season against No. 9 Virginia at noon on Saturday at the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.
For the Lady Vol swimmers, the dual meet will mark their first contest of the New Year and first competition since November as earlier in the week the Orange and White divers competed in the Tennessee Diving Invitational over Mon. - Wed.
The Big Orange (4-0, 2-0 SEC), ranked No. 12 in the TYR/College Swimming Coaches Association of America poll, will face off against a tough Cavalier squad that has a 2-1 record on the season and finished ninth at the NCAA Championships a season ago, four spots ahead of UT.
"Virginia is a really good team and when I vote, I vote them higher than ninth because they are just so solid everywhere," Lady Vol head swimming coach Matt Kredich said. "They have some outstanding athletes who can do a lot of different things. They really don't have any holes so we are going to be tested and that is why we want to compete against them."
The matchup should result in a tightly contested meet as the Lady Vols and the Cavaliers have met seven times with UVA holding a slim 4-3 advantage after defeating Tennessee in the most recent contest last year in Charlottesville, Va., by a score of 175.5-124.5.
Sophomore Kelsey Floyd is the only returner who claimed an individual victory in a swimming event last year at UVA, as the Lexington, Ky., native won the 200y free.
"The meet last year was an outstanding college swimming dual meet," Kredich said. "Both teams performed at a really high level, emotionally and physically, and when you find an opponent that gives you that and brings that out of you, then you want to schedule that opponent again."
On the boards, the Lady Vol divers were dominating against UVA. Junior Gabrielle Trudeau led a 1-2-3-4 sweep on the 1-meter board with teammates Jodie McGroarty, Skye Sanders and Jill Pierce. In the 3-meter event, McGroarty took the top spot, followed by Trudeau in second and Sanders in third.
"I like our chances against Virginia," Tennessee diving coach Dave Parrington said. "In the invitational we fared very well against their divers and I look for us to do much the same in this meet, which I know would certainly help the team immensely in the overall meet standing."
Top performers this season for UT have been seniors Aleksa Akerfelds and Martina Moravcikova, junior Jenny Connolly, sophomore Kelsey Floyd and freshman Lindsay Gendron, all of whom own NCAA B cut times.
Virginia returns a trio of All-Americans from a year ago in senior Claire Crippen (400y IM) and sophomores Lauren Perdue (50y free, 100y free, 200y free) and Christine Olson (200y breast).
This season Tennessee defeated Arkansas, Louisville, the University of the Cumberlands and Kentucky, along with finishing second at the UT Invitational.
Live results of Saturday's meet can be found at Jonesaquaticcenter.com.
