Blue's v. Orange annual meet returns for the third-straight year under Taylor
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – To kick off the 2018 year in the pool, the Carson-Newman swim team will host its annual Blue’s vs. Orange Intersquad meet on Friday, Sept. 28th in the MSAC pool. Start time is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – To kick off the 2018 year in the pool, the Carson-Newman swim team will host its annual Blue's vs. Orange Intersquad meet on Friday, Sept. 28th in the MSAC pool. Start time is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.
The race gives the Eagles a dress rehearsal before hosting Wingate at home on Oct 19-20.
The format for the intrasquad meet will require the senior captains to draft their own teams and look at the strengths and weaknesses when generating and choosing their events. It gets the team starting to think a more when picking lineups, giving them an opportunity and insight on the coaching thought process each week.
"It's good for our freshman to get the feel for a dual meet," coach Jordan Taylor said. "Plus you have about three to four meets in 90 minutes and have to warm-up differently which is not normal for most championship meets. That's a main focus to try to get some of the nervousness out of the way.
"The other thing is just to create a little rivalry and competition within the program. It helps them push themselves throughout the year in order to add a plaque on the wall at the end of the year."
In last year's event, the orange team defeated the blue team in the 22-event match by a final of 231-178 as team orange jumped out to wins in eight of the first nine events en route to a total of 16 on the evening.
Arguably the most exciting of the events of that meet occurred in the final event when both the women and men 200-yard medley relays squared off against each other, resulting in wins by a fraction of a second.
The blue team of CJ Jensen, Claudia Carroll, Elly Culp, & Lisa Posta finished the medley relay with a time of 1:50.56 beating out the orange 'A' squad by .02 seconds.
The follow-up event for the men gave Seth Hughes, Ryland Darling, Ivo Kunzle, and Jonny Goss an orange team win over the blue squad by .01 seconds.
After taking the time during January in the senior night meet, Taylor had the C-N swim senior guys race against the C-N swim senior girls, Taylor is looking to take it one step further to start the 2018 campaign.
"There's friendly competition between the teams anyway," Taylor said. "I still believe Josh Graves swam a lifetime best to win that relay.
"This time at the end of the night we will have an invitational alumni relay against invitational coaches relay. Our coaching staff and some people who have coached here over the last couple of years will compete that can still fit into their speedos, we will put them back in the pool. I will also take part in that. I'm starting my training again to prepare. We will have some of our alumni who graduated this last semester."
Maggie Melhorn, Andrew Wheeler, and Patrick McCarty are expected to return and swim with the addition of Sam Schechter who graduated two years ago.
On the coaching staff side which includes Taylor, he will be joined by the new addition to the staff and former C-N swimmer Margaret Stansberry, new assistant Chase Copland, and Ben Young who was an assistant last year and also swam for the Eagles.
"My money is on the coaches," Taylor said. "There's a lot to put on the line in terms of bragging rights. We will see how it goes."
You can find updates and a recap following the event on cneagles.com. Follow @CNAthletics or @CNSwim on Twitter and Instagram.
