Auburn hosts SEC Swimming & Diving Championships

The building’s the same. The pool’s the same.

The water? The same.

But there is something different inside Auburn’s James E. Martin Aquatics Center this week.

Maybe it’s just a little cleaner, like AU junior swimmer Ava Ohlgren said. A little sharper.

Or maybe it’s the banner. Yeah, that’s it.

“There’s really nothing they changed drastically,” Ohlgren said about Auburn’s swimming facility. “They put the SEC banners up. That made a big difference. You might not think it did, but it did.”

With more than 30 banners already hanging over the pool at Auburn, you would think adding one more wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

But not this week. This week is different.

And so is the Auburn’s Aquatics Center, host of the four-day SEC Swimming and Diving Championships. The event starts with prelims at noon
today and will end with the crowning of a men and women’s champion Saturday night.

For both the Auburn men and women’s swimming and diving teams, having the conference championships in their home pool is no doubt a plus.

It helps with nerves, comfort level and momentum heading into NCAAs next month.

“I think anytime you can have a meet at home, you try to do a little bit better,” said Auburn senior swimmer and Australian Olympic medalist Matt Targett, whose family is flying from Australia to see the meet. “A lot of the Auburn family gets to see what we do, and we try to put on the best show we possibly can.”

And it starts with focus.

“I think it’s a matter of getting into SEC Championship mode,” said AU co-head women’s coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker, whose Tigers are going for their sixth SEC title in the last seven years.

“We’re at the SEC Championships, it’s time to get in the SEC Championship mode. I call it ‘getting in your bubble.’”

And to do that, the Auburn coaching staff is treating the championships like they would if it were somewhere away from the Plains. The Tigers are staying in the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center this week, instead of in their own beds. They’re also eating every meal together and
traveling to and from the pool as a team.

“We’re all together. We’re in a team atmosphere. If we’re home, we could be doing anything else ...” Ohlgren said. “We’re treating this like we’re at a meet at a different school ... so that way we’re focused like we would be at any other meet.”

“I think for our team,” Tierney-Walker said, “it’s important to be around each other — eating together, traveling to the pool together, etc.”

It’s also important, as head diving coach Jeff Shaffer said, to recognize the situation.

“We want it to be special to them,” Shaffer said. “It’s the Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championships and it should be (special) to them. So we take the same preparation as we would if it were held somewhere else.

“Yes, it’s nice to have it in your home pool ... but to add that element of being in a special situation in a special competition and treat it as it is special ... it just raises the bar a little bit.”

For the men’s team, which is going for its 13th consecutive SEC title this week, focus is the name of the game.

That, and handling the pressure that comes with being so dominant.

“I guess there is that pressure,” said co-head men’s coach Brett Hawke. “But there’s pressure to win every year. We’re not looking up at the banners that are hanging so much, we’re just looking forward to hanging another one.”

As a program, Auburn’s won 12 NCAA titles and 20 SEC championships, including 15 men’s titles.

Pretty intimidating, right?

“I think it’s intimidating,” Hawke said. “When you walk in, it’s unlike any other pool in the country. There’s no pool where you walk in, and you see the banners in a row for the past 10 years. We’ve been easily the most dominant team in the country for the last 10-15 years, especially in the
SEC.

“It’s got to be intimidating to think ‘How are we going to knock these guys off when they’ve done it every year?’

“I think it gives us an edge, but at the same time we know they’re coming after us.”

Preliminary races start today at noon and Thursday through Saturday at 10 a.m. The finals each night will begin at 6 p.m.

mszvetitz@oanow.com | 737-2513