The SMU men’s and women’s swim teams will begin the Conference USA Championships Wednesday, Feb. 20. Women’s swimming enters with three wins this season against Rice, Houston, North Texas and TCU.

The men’s team enters with one win, a 156-144 victory over TCU. The Mustangs will look to their strongest swimmers to pull in the first place wins for the upcoming Championships.

Women’s swimmer Isabella Arcila was recently named C-USA Swimmer of the Week after their last meet, the Austin Grand Prix, against No. 6 Arizona and No. 7 Texas on Feb. 2 where she participated in two winning relay teams and also won two third place finishes in the 100 and 200-yard backstrokes with times of 56.00 and 2:00.13 respectively.

Lady mustang Rachel Nicol will also hopefully bring in big points for the team after placing first in Austin with a time of 2:28.79 in the 200-meter breaststroke. She also had two wins in the Houston/ North Texas dual meet clocking in at 1:04.01 in the 100-yard breaststroke and 2:17.75 in the 200-yard breaststroke.

The men’s swimming team also enters after winning the 400-yard freestyle in their last meet against Texas and Arizona. They also secured five additional top three finishes in Austin. Men’s swimming will look up to strong swimmers and divers such as Nicolai Hansen, David Larsson, Mindaugas Sadauskas, Ryan Koops and sophomore diver Devin Burnett this week.

Burnett looks to continue his great season in the upcoming championship. He impressively placed first in the three-meter dive against Texas A&M and in The Classic at SMU Jan. 19. 

SMU will hope its standout swimmers will be able to bring a Conference USA title when the tournament begins Wednesday and continues on through Saturday in Houston.