Eagles head to Wingate with chance to make a statement

VIDEO: Jordan Taylor previews Wingate 

WINGATE, N.C. – The Carson-Newman swim team, fresh off being nationally ranked 11^th and 12^th on the women's and men's sides respectively, will travel to Wingate, N.C. to face unranked Wingate on Oct. 18^th and 19^th for a dual-meet.

The last time these teams met in dual-meet fashion, Wingate was the nationally ranked favorite and lost to the unranked Eagles on the men's side, boosting the men into the top-25. While the C-N women lost, their valiant effort earned them a national ranking as well.

"Every event's going to be super close," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said. "If we do win events, we're going to have to race hard for it but I do want to make sure that if they're winning events they're having to work their butt off to do that."

The Eagles are fresh off a prolific showing at the King Invitational in Bristol, Tennessee in which they took first place in 32 of 36 events including every single relay contest.

"We started great, I would've liked to have won all 36 out of 36 but we'll take we'll take where we're at right now."

Taylor knows the Bulldogs will push his team to go further than they had to back at Bristol. 

"We had some, I'd say easier wins over the weekend that we were kind of a good distance in front," Taylor said. "Now those athletes are going to be challenged all the way to the end. Can we find that little bit extra over the last 25 [yards] and can we close a race essentially."

While Wingate is currently unranked nationally, the have been a perennial powerhouse that has won multiple Bluegrass Mountain Conference championships.

"It's hard to pick any holes with them, they're solid across the board," Taylor said. "It'll be interesting to see how their freshmen are going to come in and match up against us, that's going to be a big part of it."

The Bulldogs are typically able to flex their muscles in the mid-distance to distance events.

"Their mid-distance to distance side, they have a lot of depth there," Taylor said. "They can go out and win pretty much any dual-meet out in the distance side. For us, a big focus would be to make sure those mid-distance to distance events, if we can't win them, we're definitely getting in there and getting some seconds and third and so on and taking away some points from them that they would normally sweep up pretty well."

Conversely, Taylor believes the Eagles' strength lies in their individual sprint swims and their relays.

"For us, we come out from more of a sprint side, our relays just tend to be slightly stronger," Taylor said.

Be sure to keep up with the Eagles swim team all across C-N's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.