The three-day meet is meant to mirror what swimmers and divers will see at the Sun Belt Conference championships in February.
"We are just very excited to just compete at home, in front of our home crowd and parents as well," WKU coach Bruce Marchionda said. "It is the first opportunity for all of our new swimmers to experience a three day conference format. So we use it really as a learning tool and also to find individuals third event. We are pretty well set on their first two primary events for the conference championships. It is really important for us to make sure all of our swimmers are scoring in their third event."
Last season, WKU swept the Hilltopper Invitational. The women scored 835 points followed by Vanderbilt in second with 404.5, while the men totaled 815 points with Missouri S&T second with 478.
This year's Hilltopper Invitational features seven teams from across the region. Teams competing in this weekend's event include Vanderbilt, Sewanee, Evansville, Arkansas-Little Rock, Eastern Illinois, University of the Cumberlands and University of Mary Washington.
"Between the seven other teams beside us, it is kinda all of them against us," Marchionda said. "So that makes it very exciting in that if one team might be a little bit weaker in one event, another team is strong in that event, so it gives us the opportunity to get good competition in all the events across the board."
The event begins Friday and continues through Sunday. The preliminary session begin Friday and Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Sunday, with finals beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
"The experience of going through (a three-day meet) is so valuable to them, knowing what to expect and how to do it," Marchionda said. "We use it as a rehearsal. The nerves won't be quite as high for the freshman as they will be at the conference championships. So that is a different battle but it just gives them a good idea of how hard it is to get up for six different sessions and try to compete at your best in all six sessions."
For complete results and a recap of each day's competition, please visit WKUSports.com.
Meet Schedule
