Aug. 9, 2010

2010-11 Schedule | Printable Schedule

By Wes Todd
Assistant Media Relations Director

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Competition against five Southeastern Conference opponents and the final home meet in the Palmetto State Showdown series with Clemson highlight the 2010-11 South Carolina swimming & diving schedule, which was released today by head coach McGee Moody.

The Gamecocks will have three home dual meets with five opponents visiting the newly renovated Carolina Natatorium in the Solomon Blatt P.E. Center. Five SEC opponents will get the Gamecocks’ best as Carolina will face Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia in regular-season competition.

“I’m happy with how our schedule turned out,” Moody said. “We’ll be swimming some strong SEC teams as always. And we changed up our out-of-conference schedule a little bit, we’ll be swimming some teams we haven’t seen since I’ve been here in Western Kentucky and Missouri. Those should provide some great competition.”

The season opens Oct. 16 in Nashville, Tenn., with the women swimming a tri-meet with Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky while the men will compete head-to-head against the Hilltoppers. Two weeks later, it will be an historic night in Columbia as the Gamecocks will swim archrival Clemson at home for the final time on Oct. 29; the Tigers announced in April that they would be discontinuing their swimming program following the 2011-12 season.

One week later, South Carolina will hit the road again for a trip to Arkansas to face the Razorbacks and Missouri on Nov. 6 in what will be the first-ever meeting between the Gamecocks and the Tigers. Carolina will then have a two-week break before heading north to Chapel Hill, N.C., for the reincarnation of the prestigious Nike Cup Invitational, where the Gamecocks will see such competition as North Carolina, Duke, East Carolina, Navy, Old Dominion and West Virginia, among others.

Following the holiday break and the annual winter training, the Gamecocks will return to the pool as SEC foe Kentucky and cross-state rival College of Charleston visit Columbia on Jan. 7. South Carolina will then take a three-meet road swing through the state of North Carolina with competitions at Duke (Jan. 15), East Carolina (Jan. 21) and UNC Wilmington (Jan. 22). The regular season wraps up at home with a senior day showdown against conference rivals Georgia and Alabama on Jan. 29.

The conference championships will be split into separate diving and swimming segments this season, both taking place on the campus of the University of Florida. The SEC Diving Championships will run Feb. 11-13 with the SEC Swimming Championships set for Feb. 16-19 at the O’Connell Center Natatorium in Gainesville, Fla.

The following week, Gamecock swimmers will have one final opportunity to earn NCAA qualifying times at the Bulldog Last Chance Meet in Athens, Ga., Feb. 26-27. The NCAA Women’s Championships are March 17-19 in Austin, Texas, and the NCAA Men’s Championships take place March 24-26 in Minneapolis, Minn.