Swimming and Diving hosts Indiana State on Saturday

With just two meets left before the women's swimming and diving team heads to the Missouri Valley Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, the Salukis face off in an important late season meet against Missouri Valley Conference foe Indiana State in the first of back-to-back meets at home.

The Saluki men's team will swim in the meet, but only in time trials. Indiana State does not field a men's team for the Salukis to compete against.

Swimming Salukis

The Saluki women are coming off of a fourth place finish in the Butler Invite last Sunday in Fishers, Indiana. The team earned three event wins from senior Bryn Handley, and juniors Jess Peck and Jordan Ries.

Handley earned her win in the 1,650-yard freestyle to help continue her dominance in the distance swims this season. Handley has won seven times and placed in the top-10 10 times this season in an event that is 500-yards or longer.

While Handley continued to add to her ever-growing number of event wins at the Butler Invite, Ries and Peck notched some of their first wins. Peck finished first in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:07.01 for the first win of her career. Ries won in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:54.79 for her second career win and her first in over a year. Her last win came in the 100-yard butterfly in the Northwestern, Mizzou and Kentucky quad-meet in November of 2016.

Coach Walker's Thoughts

"This is the second year we've gone head-to-head with Indiana State. The first year we went there, so this is nice to host them here at home. We're coming off of what has been a pretty good Christmas training. We're excited to get our kids back in action. It's been a while since we've competed at home. We're really looking forward to it."

Nationally-Ranked Salukis

(Top-100 individual times and top-50 relay times)

Men's one-meter dive
- Eli Mercado | 340.27 | 86^th in Division I
Women's 1,000-yard freestyle
- Bryn Handley | 10:01.77 | 95^th in Division I
Women's 1,650-yard freestyle
- Bryn Handley | 16:34.46 | 65^th in Division I
Women's one-meter dive
- Beibei Ji | 299.77 |80th in Division I
Women's three-meter dive
- Beibei Ji | 315.38 | 97^th in Division I

Top Dawgs

(Conference leading times)

Men's one-meter diving
- Eli Mercado | 340.27
Women's 500-yard freestyle
- Bryn Handley | 4:52.72
Women's 1,650-yard freestyle
- Bryn Handley | 16:34.46
Women's one-meter diving
- Beibei Ji | 299.77

Getting Recognized

No Saluki swimmers have posted NCAA A or B cut times as of yet this season, however a few Salukis are knocking on the door of qualification. On the men's side, sophomore Matt Ciezczak is less that a second away from recording a B cut time. His best time this season is 21.15 and this season's B cut standard in 20.19. Sophomore diver Eli Mercado has already qualified for the NCAA Zone Diving Meet in the one and three-meter dives.

On the women's side, Seniors McKenna Avery and Chandler Ott are both about a second off of qualifying standards for the 50-yard freestyle. The B cut standard is 22.99 and Avery and Ott have swam the event in 23.84 and 23.99 respectively this season. Handley is close to qualifying in the 500 and 1,650-yard freestyle. She is less that a second off of the 4:47.79 standard in the 500-yard freestyle and just over a second off of the 1,650-yard freestyle standard. Beibei and Baobao Ji both have posted scores that qualify them for the NCAA Zone Diving Meet in March.

Conference Championship Warm-up

This is the seventh time this season that the Saluki women's team has squared up against an in-conference foe this season. Earlier this season, Southern defeated Evansville in a relay meet and Illinois State in a tri-meet against Illinois State. In the first meet of 2018, the Saluki women downed Arkansas-Little Rock 224-60. At the Butler Invite, the Salukis out-performed MVC newcomers Valparaiso by a total of 281 points. The only time the Saluki women have fallen to a MVC foe this year was back in October when Missouri State defeated Southern 138-105. The Salukis will have one more meet against an in-conference team this season before the MVC Swimming and Diving Championships when Southern faces Evansville next weekend for its senior day meet.

Scouting Indiana State

The Sycamore's swimming program is in just its second year of existence after completing its first full season in 2016-17. This season, the Trees are 13-5 in dual meets with wins against Evansville, Valparaiso, Butler and Ball State among others. Indiana State has already won 10 more dual matches this year than in its inaugural season. It's worth noting that the Sycamores have won and lost a meet against Xavier this season. The Musketeers out-performed the Salukis last weekend at the Butler Invite.

Indiana State and SIU met for the first time last season on January 27, 2017. Southern won the inaugural meeting between the two teams 142-111.

Individually for the Trees, the team has two swimmers with a combined total of three top-five times in the Missouri Valley Conference. Sophomore Blanca Saez-Illobre is fifth in the Valley in the 200-yard breaststroke and the 400-yard individual medley. She is more than a second slower than Southern's best swimmer in both events.

In the 200-yard backstroke, sophomore Kendall Hansen is fifth in the MVC with a time of 2:03.26. She is more than a second and a half faster than SIU's sophomore Juliana Carvalho who is Southern's fastest swimmer in the event and is 10^th fastest in the MVC.

Indiana State's trip to SIU this weekend also means that one of the Sycamore's coaches is making a trip to their alma mater. Fenting Chen, Indiana State's diving coach, was a two-time All-MVC selection for the Salukis from 2012-14. Chen was second in the in the three-meter dive and third in the one-meter at the MVC Swimming and Diving Championships in 2014.

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Players Mentioned

McKenna Avery

Juliana Carvalho

Matt Ciezczak

Bryn Handley

Baobao Ji

Beibei Ji

Eli Mercado

Chandler Ott

Jess Peck

Chris Phillips

Jordan Ries

Michael Wolfe

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