Women's Swimming Ready to Compete at Big Al Invitational

The Columbia women’s swimming and diving team is off to one of its best starts in recent memory. The Lions are 3-1 overall and 1-1 in the Ivy League. The Lions have made such a great start that they are receiving national recognition. Columbia was recently selected by collegeswimming.com as No. 3 in the mid-majors poll. When asked about the team’s recent success head coach Diana Caskey said, “In addition to the hard training that the team has been doing, there is a common sense of purpose with the group we have this year and it is manifesting itself in overall team confidence and a powerful competitive attitude.” The Lions look to take their recent success and confidence into Princeton this weekend to compete in the Big Al Invitational.

At the end of the regular season the Lions will compete in the Ivy League championship—held at Princeton this year—a three-day meet where swimmers compete in the morning for a chance to win the event in the evening. The invitational this weekend will be run in a similar fashion to the championship meet and this will prove helpful for the Light Blue down the road.

“We are excited to be going to an invitational where we can practice the Ivy Championship schedule and remember how taxing a three-day trials and finals competition can be,” Caskey added.

The Lions will also get a chance to compete against some teams that they would not normally swim against. Teams that will be in attendance at this weekend’s invitational include Washington State, Rutgers, Bucknell, Rider, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Brown, and host school Princeton. Regarding the competition this weekend, Caskey said, “We have been training very hard and competing well, so it will be good to see how we can fare with some competition from outside the league, as well as Princeton and Brown.”

This coming weekend, however, the Lions will be swimming at a disadvantage. The Columbia divers will be competing in a separate invitational this weekend and will not be able to contribute to the Lions’ point total. Due to final exams coming up, some of the team’s swimmers will be staying behind to pay attention to their academics. This fact does not seem to bother Caskey though.

“The group going to the meet is pumped to race fast and make it back at night,” she said. “We are looking at it as an opportunity to hone our championship meet skills and race well in the pool that will host Ivies.”