Nov. 17, 2004

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After its first weekend off in a month, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's swimming & diving team travels to the Doug Coers Invitational in Muncie, Ind. The meet spans both Friday and Saturday (Nov. 19-20) and is hosted by Ball State University.

A Look At This Week's Competition

This weekend's Doug Coers Invitational will feature five teams in addition to the Panthers, including the host Cardinals, Horizon League foe Butler University, Marshall University, Valparaiso University and Baldwin-Wallace College. BSU, Valpo and BWC are coming off seasons in which they placed among the top four at their league meet, while Ball State was picked to take third in a heated Mid-American Conference race in a preseason poll of MAC coaches.

Last Time Out

Five Panthers won two events, while three competed with a pair of first-place relays, as the UWM women topped the University of Illinois at Chicago, 179-118, in dual meet action in Chicago on Nov. 6. Milwaukee won 14 events on the day to move to 3-3 in dual meet action on the year. Leading the way was sophomore Lindsay Caldwell and freshman Kristin Skiba. The duo each swam legs on the first-place 400 medley and 400 freestyle relays and contributed a pair of individual wins at the meet.

Dominant Domination

The UWM divers continue to get better with each passing week this season. Just one week after junior Erin Blemberg surpassed her career-high and fell short of a school mark by less than nine points, sophomore Crystal Szymanski blew away her own career-best marks in winning events from both boards at UIC (Nov. 6). Panthers took four of the top five positions from the one-meter board, where she totaled 264.00 points. In the three-meter event, Milwaukee swept the top three positions, while Szymanski scored 280.80 points. Her marks eclipsed her previous bests of 231.10 in one-meter and 231.38 three-meter diving entering this season.

2005 Horizon League Championships

For the second time in four years, Milwaukee will play host to the Horizon League Championships at the Schroeder YMCA in Brown Deer, Wis. The last time the Panthers played host to the league meet was 2001, also at the Schroeder YMCA. UWM hopes history can repeat itself, as it won its only league title in 2001.

Up Next

The Panthers spend next week at home, before the divers head to the University of Notre Dame and the swimmers travel to Wheaton College. The Notre Dame Invitational runs Dec. 2-4 while the Wheaton Invitational is set for Dec. 3-4.