The LSU women’s swimming and diving squads will take to the pool today for their first regular season meet against Tulane at the LSU Natatorium at 5 p.m.
The Lady Tigers will compete against another school for the first time this season after competing amongst themselves in last Friday’s intrasquad meet.
Swimming coach Dave Geyer said perhaps just as important as winning the meet is seeing noticeable growth from all of his swimmers as the season progresses.
“You obviously want to put the most competitive lineup out there, so deep down there is that goal to win,” Geyer said. “Right now it’s just about racing and our development for later on in the fundamentals.”
Shaffer said he wants to see the corrections they make in practice come through in the competitions.
“The more you do something, the more it becomes a habit,” Shaffer said. “When we can see the positive habit come through in competition, that’s obviously what we want to see.”
Last year, the Lady Tigers traveled to New Orleans and beat Tulane, 194-98, winning 14 of 16 events against their in-state rival.
Geyer said the coaches will “play around with the lineup a little bit and spread things out” to help gauge the talent of the program.
“With our women’s roster being a little bit smaller, we’re not going to maximize everyone’s events this meet,” Geyer said. “We’ll just try to keep everybody more fresh and get some racing experiences out of them.”
Tulane, coming off a fifth-place finish at last season’s Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championships, is also opening its competition schedule today.
Shaffer said today’s meet will be a great opportunity for the women’s squads to get experience in their home pool.
“I want to see them compete and rise to the occasion and represent LSU in a positive light,” Shaffer said.
Friday’s meet will be the last one before the Tigers and Lady Tigers compete in consecutive days against Florida State and Florida on Oct. 14 and 15.
Geyer said he thinks the Lady Tigers are in good shape going into the weekend.
“I think the women will use the fine-tuning against Tulane to get ready for the two meets in Florida,” Geyer said.
 
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