LEXINGTON, Ky. – The 2022-23 swim and dive season is ready to get underway as Kentucky prepares to kick-off the 12 months on the staff’s annual blue/white intrasquad meet at Lancaster Aquatic Heart, Friday, Sept. 23 at 3 p.m.
The meet would be the first of a number of thrilling occasions on the calendar for the Wildcats, together with a complete of six twin meets and quite a few high-level invitationals.
In the course of the twin meet portion of the schedule, Kentucky will tackle 5 colleges ranked inside the highest 25 within the remaining 2021-22 CSCAA rankings, together with Indiana, NC State, Texas A&M, Georgia and Louisville. Three of those 5 matchups might be held on the Lancaster Aquatic Heart as Indiana, Georgia and Louisville are all slated to make the journey to Lexington.
“We swim a brilliant aggressive twin meet schedule the place we’re simply attempting to organize to be aggressive in February and March,” head coach Lars Jorgensen stated. “I feel each groups (women and men) have the chance to enhance upon final 12 months’s outcomes.”
This season’s postseason slate options the SEC Championship, Feb. 14-18, in Faculty Station, Texas together with the NCAA Championships, March 15-18 (ladies) and March 22-25 (males). The ladies’s championship might be held in Knoxville, Tenn. and the lads’s in Minneapolis, Minn.
Kentucky is coming off a 2021-22 season during which each the women and men competed on the NCAA Championships, inserting twelfth and thirty first, respectively. In all, 12 ladies mixed for 33 NCAA entries whereas seven males acquired NCAA bids.
The Cats additionally discovered nice success within the SEC a season in the past, with the ladies ending second within the convention and the lads posting eighth place. The Wildcats totaled 15 podium finishes in all on the 2022 convention meet, together with three particular person titles.
Trying to construct off these leads to 2022-23, the Kentucky ladies determine to be among the many greatest within the convention as soon as once more. The Cats have positioned contained in the top-15 at NCAAs in every of the final 5 seasons and return 28 student-athletes from the 2021-22 staff. In all, seven All-America choices are again in Lexington together with Catlin Brooks, Gillian Davey, Izzy Gati, Kyndal Knight, Lauren Poole, Beth McNeese and Anna Havens-Rice.
Davey, a senior who hails from Urbandale, Iowa, was named All-SEC First-Crew final season and gained gold on the convention championship within the 200 breaststroke, an occasion she holds the UK program report in. Knight is again for a fifth-year after being named SEC Co-Diver of the Yr final season and receiving All-America Honorable Point out within the 1-meter, 3-meter and 10-meter platform. Fellow fifth-year Izzy Gati and senior Caitlin Brooks type a dynamic butterfly tandem certain to attain vital factors for the Wildcats, whereas Poole is primed for an enormous season within the water contemporary off a top-five end at NCAAs within the 400 IM. Junior Bridget Engel returns to campus after setting this system report within the 100m breaststroke this summer season and might be one other title to look at this season.
Becoming a member of the embellished group of upperclassmen are 11 freshman who will hope to offer a lift for the Cats of their quest to return to the highest of the SEC. The category is ranked fifteenth within the nation by Swim Swam and is headlined by the likes of Lydia Hanlon, Denise Phelan and Jordan Agliano.
The Kentucky males carry again 15 student-athletes whereas including 10 newcomers to their 25-man roster. A number of high performers are set to return, beginning with 2021-22 first-team All-American, Mason Wilby. Wilby is a two-time NCAA qualifier and was chosen to the All-SEC Second-Crew final 12 months. The Florida native enters the season proudly owning this system’s high time within the 200 IM, 200 backstroke and 200 butterfly. Junior Max Berg can be again for the Cats after an impressive 2021-22 marketing campaign which noticed the Frenchmen set the varsity report within the 200 freestyle on his strategy to incomes SEC Second-Crew honors for the second time. Sophomore Nick Caruso, too, seems in line for an enormous season after a powerful summer season during which he set new program bests in each the 400m and 800m freestyle, whereas junior Zane Rosely is poised to be a think about distance occasions. Reigning SEC Second-Crew choice Jakob Clark figures to be an necessary contributor for the Cats, as does junior diver Sam Duncan who has earned NCAA Championship nods in every his first two seasons.
UK’s freshman class earned a No. 13 rating from Swim Swam and options a number of members who might present rapid contributions equivalent to Levi Sandidge, a freshman from Richardson, Texas who was named to USA Swimming’s Nationwide Junior Crew earlier this week.
The 2022-23 Wildcats might be led males’s captains Sam Duncan and Mason Wilby and ladies’s captains Caitlin Brooks, Gillian Davey, Izzy Gati, Lauren Poole, Kyndal Knight and Kaitlynn Wheeler. Head Coach Lars Jorgensen is in his tenth season with this system.
