The LSU swimming and diving team showed some hope as it competed against a nationally ranked Florida team at home on Friday.
LSU hosted Florida for its first home meet of the season. The Tigers lost on both the men’s and women’s side. The LSU men scored 129.5 to Florida’s 164.5, while the women scored 104 to Florida’s 196.
Most of the Gators’ points came from winning the majority of the swimming events. Out of the 28 swimming events, the Tigers only won six. However, the Tigers dominated the diving events, sweeping the competition.
The swimming events finished just in time to catch the final round of diving events. Each team gathered on each side of the diving pool and cheered for their teammates. The energy was high.
“It was like a mini SEC cheering match,” diving coach Doug Shaffer said.
Junior diver Juan Celaya-Hernandez won both the one-meter and the three-meter diving events, breaking his own pool record in the three-meter. He dove with a score of 478.13, beating pool previous record of 469.95, which he set in 2017. His best dive came at the end with both teams watching. While most people would thrive off of that energy, Celaya-Hernandez takes a different approach. 
“If anything it gives you a little bit of energy and an extra push, but I am always trying to step away from the noise and the cheering,”Celaya-Hernandez said. “It is just me and the pool. It is just me and my coach.” 
He is taking the season one meet at a time and is focused on the next meet against Kentucky.
Senior diver Elizabeth Cui also impressed, as she came out and won both the one-meter diving and three-meter diving events.
Shaffer had high praise for all his divers after the meet. He was proud of the way they performed and “rolled with the modifications to the schedule.”
He said that it was neat to see both teams watch and cheer for the diving events and noticed that the divers from both teams started pulling out their more impressive dives.
“Divers are performers,” Coach Shaffer said.
Although he was proud of their performance he said that it was only October and that there was still “lots of work to do
The LSU swimming team did not do as well against Florida.
“It was a long day for the Tigers,” said LSU swimming coach Dave Geyer. “Florida is a very quality team. But I liked how we raced the whole meet.”
He enjoyed the way that they pushed and competed against Florida, even though they did not come out on top as he had hoped. Another thing that he praised his team about was the way that they were able to go cheer on the divers after the swimming events were finished.
“That is one of the biggest steps our program has taken over the past couple of years,” Geyer said. “It has always sort been the swimming team and then there has been diving. Couch Doug and I have really worked on to make sure that this is the Swimming and Diving program. It is really nice to have that connectivity across the board.” 
They definitely seemed like a cohesive unit today and showed some bright spots in only the season’s second meet. They are now preparing for their next meet against Kentucky in two weeks.