Swimming fans, take heart: we’re almost through the post-World Championships doldrums and into the frenzied NCAA dual meet season. In fact, NCAA competition opens this Friday with Alabama going on the road to battle Delta State.
These two teams have made a tradition out of kicking off the NCAA in early September, just a few weeks after most programs started practicing. It’s been the first meet on the NCAA schedule since at least 2014, when Alabama picked up 216-79 and 199-98 wins on September 12. In the fall of 2013, the meet was a week later, on September 20, and the year prior, the dual took place in the first week of October.
Alabama’s men are coming off of three-straight top 10 finishes at Division I NCAAs, and should be the most star-studded team in attendance. The Crimson Tide women were 10th at SECs last year and scored 3.5 points at NCAAs.
Delta State competes in Division II of the NCAA, where their men were 8th last year and their women 12th. They’ll use this dual against Division I Alabama to start tuning up for a run in the New South Intercollegiate Swimming Conference, where both the men’s and women’s programs finished 2nd last season.
Delta State will host the Alabama dual this year in Cleveland, Mississippi after traveling to Tuscaloosa last season. The meet begins Friday night at 2 PM Eastern Time. As always, stay tuned to SwimSwam.com for full coverage of all college swimming competition from this weekend until the season wraps in mid-March.
Go Statesmen! Delta State has maybe the best facility of all D2 programs and one of the best in the country.
Roll Tide!