The Yale men's swimming and diving team has finalized its schedule for the 2015-2016 season. The challenging slate of meets will give the Bulldogs chances to compete against some of the nation's best programs as they build upon their third-place finish at last season's Ivy League Championships.
After an early scrimmage with Johns Hopkins on Oct. 17, Yale opens its regular season with a home meet against Brown on Nov. 7 at 12:00 p.m. Yale is jumping into Ivy League competition earlier than usual this year, and the team looks forward to starting out with an exciting meet in front of a spirited home crowd at the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool.
On Nov. 14, the Elis will travel to New York for a meet with Columbia. On their last trip to Uris Natatorium in 2013, the Bulldogs lost to the Lions by a razor-thin margin of six points after falling short in the final relay. Yale got its revenge last year with a 174-126 win in New Haven.
"The Yale/Columbia meet always brings out the best in both teams," assistant coach Kevin Norman said.
This year the Elis will make their first appearance at the Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup Invitational in Chapel Hill, N.C., where they will take on some top-flight programs from across the nation. Last year's meet featured Duke, UNC and N.C. State from the ACC; South Carolina and Tennessee from the SEC; and talented teams from the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy. The meet will take place over three days, from Nov. 19-21.
"The Nike Invitational is another opportunity to provide our guys with more competition," Norman said.
"In order for this program to reach its full potential, we need to challenge them constantly."
On Dec. 5, the two best swim teams in the state of Connecticut— the Yale Bulldogs and the UConn Huskies— will go head-to-head for the first time in five years. They will travel to the Rutgers University pool in Piscataway, N.J., for a tri-meet, joined by another group of "canines"— the Boston University Terriers. Swimming fans from across New England will be eager to see how this one plays out.
Before heading into final exams, the Yale swimmers and divers will host a dual meet with their close neighbors from SCSU on Dec. 11. They will return to competition on Jan. 6 with another home meet, this one against the up-and-coming Cornell Big Red.
On just three days' rest, the Bulldogs will face two more Ivy League opponents at a meet with Dartmouth and Penn in Philadelphia on Jan. 9. Next up is a rematch with the Penn State Nittany Lions, whom Yale upset in a memorable 181-172 victory last season. This year's meet will take place at the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool from Jan. 15-16.
The "HYP" meet against Harvard and Princeton will be held on the Tigers' home turf in New Jersey from Jan. 29-30. Norman said that the impressive depth of all three teams is a testament to Ivy League's rise to the forefront of NCAA swimming in recent years.
As always, the Ivy League season will conclude with the conference championship meet, which will be held this year at Brown in Providence, R.I., from Feb. 25-27.
If any members of the team qualify for the NCAA Championships, they will be in Atlanta from Mar. 24-26 to compete at Georgia Tech's Coach Herb McAuley Aquatic Center— the facility built for the 1996 Olympics.
