Duke swimming hosts four-way matchup

The Blue Devils will host No. 15 Florida State and Virginia Tech and UNC Wilmington at 2 p.m. Saturday at Taishoff Aquatic Pavillion.

Duke is coming off a strong season opener at the All-North Carolina Invitational Oct. 5 and 6. There the men took second and the women took third.

“It’s not often that we do these four way competitions like this, so it’s a great opportunity to come in and see a lot of great swimmers from four different schools compete,” Duke head coach Dan Colella said. “There’s [also] going to be a great group of divers this weekend. So its an opportunity hopefully for our spectators, our fans to come out and have a great afternoon of watching swimming and diving.”

Colella noted that although UNC Wilmington has some quality athletes, the main competition will come from the ACC.

“We have the potential to do really great in particular races against them and we have the opportunity to win events against them,” Colella said. “The thing that’s going to be a challenge is just their sheer depth versus what we have currently.”

Duke will look to senior Ben Hwang to secure the 50-yard freestyle, as he is currently tied for the best time in the nation with 20.03. Junior Christine Wixted will likely swim her usual breaststroke events, even though she surprised the team by winning the 100-freestyle, an event she had never before swam at Duke, in the season opener.

“I would expect that we’re still actually playing around with our lineup currently, trying to figure out exactly where people are going to swim but you’re probably going to see people swimming their primary events this weekend,” he said. “We may throw a curveball out there, see what happens.”

Colella also noted that the team will rely on the freshmen, who performed well at the season opener.