Oct. 8, 2009

Meet Notes in PDF Format | Live Results

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The University of South Carolina opens its 2009-10 swimming and diving dual meet season with a bang as Southeastern Conference foe Kentucky visits the Carolina Natatorium for an early-season clash on Friday, Oct. 9. Diving gets underway at noon, and the swimming portion of the meet begins at 1 p.m. Admission is free, free t-shirts will be available to the first 150 fans, and South Carolina students in attendance will earn double loyalty points.

Last season, the Gamecock women finished seventh at the SEC Championships, one spot ahead of the Wildcats. The Carolina men, meanwhile, ended up one spot behind Kentucky in eighth place. In other words, the teams are fairly evenly matched, which should result in an exciting meet to open the season.

“Both team, men and women, look like they’re going to match up pretty well,” head coach McGee Moody said. “We’re going to lean on a few events where we really have to be strong. On the women’s side, we have to be strong in the middle distance and distance freestyle. Kentucky is more of a sprint team, both men and women. The men’s meet matches up really well… they get the advantage in the sprints again. We have to be strong in our stroke events, and again our distance events are going to play key roles. It may come down to the last relay on both sides.”

Moody expects his freshmen to have a big impact on the meet. The men’s recruiting class was ranked No. 21 in the country by CollegeSwimming.com, and they will have their first chance to shine on Friday.

“On the guys’ side, they’re going to play a big role,” Moody said. “In the distance events, we really had no depth at all last year. That was one of the keys to our recruiting last year. We brought in three guys that are not only going to win a lot of events for us, but give us that 1-2-3 finish that we’ve never had before. With the 1000 at the front end of the meet, it will be nice to get big points there as opposed to having to play catch-up.”

It will be the 18th meeting between the schools in the pool with the Wildcats holding a 12-5 all-time edge on the men’s side and a 10-7 advantage in women’s meets. The last meeting between the schools came in a tri-meet on Oct. 26, 2007, in Knoxville, Tenn., that included Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina. The Wildcats took both decisions, winning the men’s meet 221-77 and the women’s meet 183-117.

The Gamecocks will welcome back former head coach Don Gibb, who is now an assistant at the University of Kentucky. Under Gibb, who led the Gamecock program from 1999-2007, South Carolina produced four Olympians, 34 All-Americans, one SEC Swimmer of the Year and seven All-SEC selections.

Fans unable to make it out to the Blatt P.E. Center’s Carolina Natatorium will be able to follow the meet via live scoring through SportsTiming.com.