After more than a month off from action, the Marshall University swimming and diving team will return to action on Friday, January 20th at the James Madison University Invitational. The team will travel to Harrisonburg, Virginia to face off with James Madison University and the Virginia Military Institute in a two-day tri-meet beginning on Friday evening.

The Marshall swimming and diving team has not competed since December 2nd, 2016 in a dual meet victory over Ohio University, 173-127. On that night, the team won 11 of the 16 events contested over the Bobcats.

“As a team, we’re excited to get back into competition mode,” senior mid-distance swimmer Bree Mury said. “We’ve put in some really amazing and hard training over winter break and we cannot wait to see the benefits of it. Everyone has been killing it in practice and I can’t wait to see how fast we all go this weekend.”

The JMU Bulldogs have an undefeated 7-0 record in dual, tri, and pod meets. The Bulldogs are coming off of a 182-118 dual meet victory over in-state rival Richmond University. They placed first in 11 of 16 events contested in that contest against the Richmond Spiders.

The VMI Keydets have had even longer of a break than the Thundering Herd has had. The Keydets have not competed since Wednesday, November 16th, 2016 in a dual meet loss at Binghamton University. The Keydets are 2-5 in dual, tri, and pod meets.

“JMU is going to be a challenge,” head coach Bill Tramel said. “They are undefeated right now and I don’t believe a Marshall team has ever beaten them. We like challenges though. We’ll look them right in the eye, but at the end of the day, win or lose, we want to execute a good performance fundamentally.”

For the swimming and diving team, returning to action this weekend means the Conference USA Championships are now on the horizon. The team only has two competitions remaining before the conference meet in just over a month in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Like every team at this time of the season, we are coming off of some hard work,” Tramel said. “They may be a little sore, and now that school has picked back up, they are adjusting again to a tedious schedule. What we’re looking for now is an execution of details…we really just want to refine our races now as we prepare for conference championships in about a month.”

Following this weekend’s tri-meet, the team returns to action at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28th at home in the Fredrick A. Fitch Natatorium against SEC opponent Vanderbilt in a dual meet. The following week the team will host the two-day MU Invite beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3rd.

Patrick O’Leary can be contacted at [email protected].