Swimming & Diving Heads to Penn State For Weekend Meet

East Lansing, Mich. -- Michigan State's swimming and diving programs head to State College, Pa. this weekend for a showdown with the Penn State.

The combined men's and women's competition will take place over two days, beginning Friday evening at 5:45 pm at McCoy Natatorium. Competition will resume at 9:30 am (women) and 2 pm (men) on Saturday afternoon.

Watch Links:
Friday Diving (5:30 pm)
Friday Swimming (6:15 pm)
Saturday Swimming (9:30 am women/2 pm men)

Live Results will be on Meet Mobile.

Penn State is back in competition for the first time since Jan. 22-23, when it raced Iowa and Northwestern, falling to both Big Ten squads. MSU's men and women competed on separate days at the University of Michigan, with the men falling to the Wolverines and the women split their results, defeating Rutgers and losing to Michigan.

"I continue to be impressed by how our athletes are handling themselves in some pretty trying training conditions," said head coach Matt Gianiodis. "We're seeing it all over the league and the country – the challenges these student-athletes are overcoming just to be able to compete is impressive. I think we have really dialed in and focused on getting better since we swam two weeks ago at Michigan, and we're looking forward to the meet this weekend. We've lost a lot of opportunities to compete this season, so we're going to make the most of what we do have."

On the men's side, sophomore Travis Nitkiewicz took second place for MSU in two events, the 100 and 200 breast. Four freshmen earned second-place finishes in their first collegiate meet.  Michael Benington earned a pair on his own: in the 400 IM and also the 200 back; James Gavin was second in the 500 free, and Stephen Freitag took second in the 100 fly.

Two seniors led the way for the women the next day – diver Amanda Ling made the "A" cut on the 1m board, scoring a 308.0 and taking second place. Meanwhile, Erin Szara posted a commanding victory in the 100 breast, clocked in a time of 1:01.67; she was nearly four seconds faster than the second-place finisher which was also a provisional cut for the NCAA Championship meet. She also placed second in the 200 breast (2:20.63).

Some talented freshman were making their collegiate debuts. Allison Haak finished second in the 100 back and, and classmate Julia Coffman was third. Coffman was second later in the meet in the 200 back, while Sheridan Phalen led the MSU pack in the 50 free with a second-place finish and then took fourth in the 100 free.

Behind Erin Szara in the 100 breast, three MSU freshmen went 3-4-5, (Olivia Starzomski , Lindsey Witte and Riley Szara) .

The teams will next compete at the Big Ten Championships. The women's swimming events will be contested Feb. 23-27 at Minnesota, while the men's swimming championships are a week later (March 2-6) at Ohio State. All the diving will be held at a separate site in 2021, with Purdue hosting the Big Ten Diving Championships Feb. 24-27 in West Lafayette.

Players Mentioned

Michael Benington

Julia Coffman

James Gavin

Amanda Ling

Travis Nitkiewicz

Sheridan Phalen

Olivia Starzomski

Erin Szara

Riley Szara

Lindsey Witte

Related Videos