Swimming and Diving to Hold Orange and White Meet Saturday

Sept. 27, 2007

The Clemson University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will hold their annual Orange and White exhibition meet at McHugh Natatorium at 9 a.m on Saturday. The meet splits the team down the middle in competition in every event in preparation for the season-opener.

“The Orange and White meet is great early season competition,” said head coach Chris Ip. “It allows the swimmers to go through some different strokes that they might not be used to. The key word here is `competition.’ The team has been doing various activities throughout the past three weeks such as batting cages, flag football, dodgeball, to get into the competitive mood. This will be a good benchmark to see how ready we are for the season.”

The 2007-08 men’s team returns 18 lettermen from a 2006-07 team that finished 9-3 and 5th in the ACC meet. Graduate Jay Crout and seniors Matt Balderston and Attila Ruszka are the captains on a team that features nine seniors and two fifth-year graduates. The team has at least one member of Clemson’s all-time top-ten list in every swimming event, including two school record-holders, Mark Vahle and Ruszka. Sophomore divers David Giambra and Marco Raye will also be competing in the event.

The 2007-08 women’s squad has 21 returning letter winners from a team that went 10-5 in 2006-07, which was the most wins in the ACC. Junior Michelle Parkhurst holds two school records, while junior captain Rachel Regone holds another. The Lady Tigers also return three out of four swimmers from a 200 free relay team that set the ACC meet record last season.

Ip said, “Coach Asti and Coach Phillips will be the coaches for the event, so there are some serious bragging rights on the line. We will also get to see the freshman dynamics and see how they react to real college competition.”

The meet will be the team’s final preparation before suiting up for their season-opening meet against Virginia Tech on October 7th. The meet with the Hokies will be held at HcHugh Natatorium at 11:00 a.m., and is one of only five home meets for the Tigers in 2007-08.