Eagles head to first NCAA event of season at King Invitational

VIDEO: Carson-Newman swim coach Jordan Taylor previews King Invitational

KINGSPORT, TN - The Carson-Newman swim team will travel to Kingsport, Tennessee tomorrow for the squad's first official NCAA meet of the 2019-20 campaign at the King Invitational.

The event consists of three total sessions, one on Friday evening starting at 4 p.m. and two over the course of Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Bluegrass Mountain Conference foes such as Catawba, Lees-McRae, Mars Hill and King University will be in attendance. 

"I think we can step up and sweep the relays," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said. "That would be a big focus for us just to show off our strength and depth."

While most dual-meets will have about two-thirds of all of the college swims, invitational competitions such as this one feature every event run at this level.

"We've got a chance to see everyone get up and race, your sprinters and your distance athletes," Taylor said.

Taylor prefers the team use this event to set the tone for the rest of the season and to perhaps grab a national ranking to be held onto all the way through to the NCAA National Championships in March.

"After this we start to look at national rankings," Taylor said. "...for me, start at the top of the table and just kind of hold yourself there is kind of our goal rather than desperately trying to find national rankings come conference time in February so that's kind of a big goal for us is to be better than we were last week at Blue vs. Orange and start to look at not just how we're doing at that individual meet but how we're doing with the rest of the country and are we starting to get ourselves ranked again for the 2019-2020 season."

Upperclassmen like Chad Andoljsek (Slovenia), Caleb Howell (Easley, S.C.), and Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.), look to lead the way after securing multiple first place finishes at the inter squad championships.

"I expect to see them heavily featured on our relays," Taylor said. "Like I said, I would love to go in and sweep the relays and so that's gonna require some big performances from our upperclassmen but really excited for our seniors. This is their last first road meet of the season, last first proper swim meet of their senior year so I'm trying to encourage them to soak it all up because February and March are going to be here before they know it and I just want them to really appreciate every part of this senior year journey."

Freshman Linda Ungerboeck (Vienna, Austria) looks to improve upon her collegiate debut at the CSCAA Open Water National Championships in Lawrence, Kansas that saw her finish third out of 76 opponents, some of whom were DI swimmers.

"We're gonna have the mile, the 1650 which is the longest pool event there is in college swimming and so that would be the first one of the season and that will give her a chance to race it for the first time," Taylor said. "Part of being international, she's never done a 1650 yards so we'll get a kind of base time for her. Expect her to go and have a really strong swim in that event."

Sophomore Meredith Ginn (Ocala, FL) had a strong showing in Lawrence and freshman Rachel Peden (Boiling Springs, S.C.) finished first in the 400-yard individual medley during the inter squad championships.

"Them being the more mid-distance, distance type athletes I think we'll see them featured pretty heavily at this meet this weekend," Taylor said.

Junior Casey Charles (Mt. Juliet, TN) placed sixth back at Lawrence and also aims to continue the hot start to his season.

"On the guy's side again Casey Charles who finished sixth in the guys, he'll get an opportunity to showcase his talents in the mile along with the other guys Ryland, Hayden and Kodee," Taylor said. "Coming off the back of a great 5k and National Championships so yeah looking forward to it."

Be sure to keep up with the C-N swim team all season long on all of Carson-Newman's social media platforms and on cneagles.com