The defending American Athletic Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Champion Mustangs have released their 2015-2016 schedule.
Head coach Steve Collins made the announcement this week, beginning his 30th year as the leader of the SMU program. The team will look to build on last season’s success, which included the AAC Championship, a 31st overall finish at the NCAA Championship, and a host of All-America honors.
Several Mustangs competed in worldwide events this summer. Three alumni swimmers and one active swimmer competed for their respective countries in the FINA World Championships in Russia in early August. They did well, setting several personal bests and even a few national records.
Two of the alumni, Rachel Nicol and Isabella Arcila, also participated in the Pan American Games in July. Nicol, swimming for Canada, earned two medals – silver and bronze. She was a leading contributor to the team in the 2014-2015 season.
This year’s team will open the season on Sept. 25 with its annual Intra Squad event. The Mustangs begin competition on Oct. 2 in a relay event at North Texas that also features AAC opponent Houston. They will then host the 22nd annual SMU Classic in Lewisville Oct. 16-17.
This event features UCLA, Florida State, Missouri, Louisville and TCU. Out of that group, only TCU finished outside the nation’s top 25 last season, making this event a good test of the Mustangs’ talent as they look to improve upon their third place finish a year ago. The team will end its season in Houston with dual meets Oct. 30-31 against Houston and Rice respectively, both of which the team beat last year.
November includes road events at LSU on Nov. 7, Tulane on Nov. 8, and the Texas A&M invite Nov. 19-21. These three events are the last of the 2015 portion of the schedule. The Mustangs’ begin the second half of the season on Jan. 9 at Texas A&M, which finished fourth at the NCAA Championship this year.
SMU will conclude its regular season events against North Texas on Feb. 5 and gear up for the championship season with a time trial exhibition featuring UNT and Oklahoma Baptist on Feb. 6.
The 2015-2016 American Championship will be hosted by Houston Feb. 17-20. The 2016 NCAA Championship (Mar. 17-19) will be held at Georgia Tech.
The USA National Championships (Dec. 3-5), Austin Grand Prix (Jan. 14-16) and Mesa Grand Prix (April 14-16) are also part of the schedule but are separate from the regular season and conference events.
