On Saturday afternoon, the UK men and women’s swimming & diving teams held their second meet (first for the men’s team) of the season against the Eastern Michigan Eagles at Lancaster Aquatic Center.

Kentucky took the overall victory, as the men won with a final score of 184-113, and the women won 174-124. The women’s team is now 2-0, men move to 1-0 going into their next meet against Tennessee and Indiana.

The meet began with a 1-2-3 sweep from Kentucky in the 1650m freestyle, which was won by Isaac Jones with a time of 15:32.35, and followed by Jack Gunning and Jarod Kehl.

“Today was the season opener so I really wanted to put some strong times on the board. This is the only time we get to swim the mile so I wanted to do really good in the mile to give myself the confidence I need,” Jones said of his performance. “My goal is to make NCAA meet midseason at the Ohio State competition.”

Kentucky also got great performances out of sophomore Asia Seidt, as she won the 100m backstroke with NCAA ‘B’ cut with a time of 53.57. Behind her was her teammate Ali Galyer who came in second with a time of 54.36 also with NCAA ‘B’ cut.

“I think there’s a lot of people that stepped up today, especially freshmen,” Seidt said on team performance. “I think it’s exciting to finally see them race and see what they can do when we compete against other teams.”

Kentucky men and women won around 20 events combined. Overall, both squads did well as some big meets lie ahead in the schedule.  

“Overall I thought it was pretty good. We still have some weak areas we have to get better in,” said head coach Lars Jorgensen, “Some people performed really well but we have to be a lot better when we swim two weeks from now.”

The Cats will be back in action on Friday, Oct. 27, when they travel to Knoxville, Tennessee, for their next meet.