LSU senior swimmer Christoph Lubenau locked in his trip to the NCAA Swimming Championships in the 100-yard butterfly  with a time of 45.99 seconds at the Southeastern Conference championships.”It felt good,” Lubenau said. “It is good to have an ‘A’ cut to secure that position so you don’t have to wait if you get picked up or not.” He was the only LSU swimmer to gain an automatic berth to NCAA championships with an ‘A’ cut. The rest of the LSU swimming and diving teams head to the Georgia Last Chance Meet in Athens, Ga.NCAA ‘A’ cuts guarantee a swimmer and automatic trip to the NCAAs.The Tigers and Lady Tigers placed sixth and eighth at the SEC championships but shattered a plethora of school records and picked up several NCAA ‘B’ cuts.Swimmers who make a ‘B’ cut can participate in the NCAA championships if there are extra slots not taken by ‘A’ qualifiers.”If we would have been in any other conference we would have placed a lot better,” Lubenau said. Placing aside, the swimmers all recognized a step forward from last year. “We did awesome,” said sophomore Jane Trepp. “It was so much better than last year. I would say 90 percent did their best times.”  Trepp earned ‘B’ cuts in her individual events but has to wait for other conferences to finish their championships to see if her times will carry her to NCAAs.”It just depends on how fast everyone’s going,” said LSU assistant coach Kevin Clements. “And right now teams out there are going really fast.” Clements said his team will feel a lot safer after the weekend. He said the teams are focusing on getting relay teams to NCAA championships.Clements said many of the LSU relay teams are close to NCAA ‘A’ cuts and are hoping to get those cuts this weekend. “We have ‘B’ cuts in all of four relays,” he said. “But right now ‘B’ cuts really don’t mean a thing. The closer you can get to an ‘A’ cut, the better, so that is what we are going for.”Lubenau is going to the last chance meet to swim the relays despite already earning an individual trip.”So I don’t have to go by myself,” Lubenau joked.—-Contact Amos Morale at [email protected]