Swim & Dive Central: SEC Championships

Tuesday, February 18

Auburn, AL

University of Tennessee

SEC Championships

Photo by: Adrien Terricabras/Tennessee Athletics

February 17, 2020 | Swimming & Diving

SEC Championship Central Swimming Live Results Diving Live Results

AUBURN, Ala. – The No. 4/12 Tennessee swimming and diving team will compete in the 2020 SEC Championships Tuesday at Auburn's James E. Martin Aquatic Center.

The championships kickoff with the women's 1-meter and men's 3-meter diving preliminaries starting at 11:30 a.m. ET. Tuesday's evening finals begin at 5:20 p.m. and include the diving finals as well as the 200 medley relay and 800 free relay.

Wednesday through Saturday, prelims will begin at 10:30 a.m. ET for swimming and 1 p.m. for diving, with finals in the evening starting at 6:30 p.m.

Throughout the week, all events will be streamed on SEC Network Plus.

This will be the first time since 2015 that Auburn has hosted the SEC Championship meet. The previous two times the meet was down on The Plains, the Lady Vols finished fourth while the men placed third (2009) and fourth (2015), respectively.

A year ago, the Tennessee men finished third at SECs for their highest finish since placing third in 2011. The men also brought home three SEC event titles. The Lady Vols placed fourth last season and have not finished outside the top four since placing fifth in 2014. The women won seven SEC event titles in 2019.

UNDEFEATED

The Lady Vols finished the 2019-20 regular-season 8-0 and undefeated for the first time 1972-73, defeating five top 25 opponents along the way. The women won their eight dual meets by an average of 79.9 points, with the largest win coming over Vanderbilt by 137 points.

UNDERDOGS NO MORE

On the men's side, the 2019-20 season turned into one of the best in program history as the Vols finished 7-1, their best record since 2001-02. The men defeated four ranked opponents and suffered their only loss on the road at No. 8 Georgia.

TOP TIMES IN THE SEC

The SEC Championships have an A, B and C final with eight qualifiers in each final heat. Finishers are scored 1-24 with the SEC Champion scoring 32 points for winning his or her A final while the last place finisher in the C final scores one point.

The Lady Vols enter the championships with 58 times across all events that rank inside the top 24 in the league this season. For the men, the Vols have 45 times across all events that place among the top 24 in the SEC.

RETURNING SEC CHAMPIONS

The women's squad returns five swimmers that won an SEC title a year ago, including two individual SEC Champions.

Senior Erika Brown enters her final SEC Championships as a 12-time SEC title winner, having won the 50 free (2x), 100 free (2x), 100 fly (2x), 200 free relay (2x), 200 medley relay (2x) and 400 medley relay (2x). Last season, Brown became the first Vol, male or female, to win back-to-back SEC titles in three separate individual events when she won the 50 and 100 free and 100 fly.

Meghan Small is a three-time SEC Champion and enters this week's championships as the SEC's reigning 200 individual medley champion. The Lineboro, Md., native has won the 200 IM title twice with the first coming her freshman year in 2017.

Bailey Grinter, Stanzi Moseley and Nikol Popov won SEC titles in 2019 as a part of the 200 and 400 medley relay (Popov) and the 200 free relay (Grinter and Moseley).

ON THE BOARDS

The six divers competing for the Orange and White this week will be Will Hallam, Keegan Richardson and Matthew Wade for the men, while the women will be represented by Grace Cable, Ana Celaya Hernandez and Kara Holt.

As a freshman in 2019, Wade reached the finals on all three boards finishing fifth on 1-meter and 3-meter and sixth on platform.

Hallam and Hernandez will be competing in their third SEC Championships while Richardson is entering his second championship meet. Cable and Holt will both be competing at the conference meet for the first time.