The Georgetown swimming and diving team will make the trip up to Lewisburg, Pa. this weekend for the three-day Bucknell Invitational at the Kinney Natatorium. They will be competing against Colgate, Delaware, Fordham, La Salle and host Bucknell, schools the team last faced in the form of a rather one-sided loss in Delaware back on Oct. 8.

The weekend is a great opportunity for the Hoyas to gain some multi-team meet experience against some quality opponents while serving as an important warm-up for the Big East championship, which Pittsburgh will play host to in February.

“Bucknell will be very tough competition,” Head Coach Jamie Holder said. “Colgate is also a very good team and Delaware beat us earlier in the year. … It is probably the biggest meet of the semester for us,” Holder said. “It is our last big meet before the Big East championship.”

The team will only have four meets against local rivals Maryland, American, James Madison and Catholic between now and the conference championship, which is almost three months away. Holder knows the significance of this meet in the context of the overall season leading to Pittsburgh.

“We want to see some fast times and be able to focus on next semester’s championship part of the season,” Holder said.

While junior Paul Quincy will look to make a big impact this weekend, the Hoyas are confident they can turn to the depth of their squad to meet the team’s goals.

“Paul is a great long distance guy who leads our team,” Holder said. “We pretty much have confidence in everyone to post good times and I’m interested to see what some of the freshmen can do.”

This meet marks the final tune-up before the conference championships, where last year the men’s and women’s teams finished eighth and 10th, respectively, out of the 11 participating teams. The diving team did not fare much better, earning finishes of sixth by the men and seventh by the women.

The Blue and Gray hope to gain momentum moving forward, but to do so the team must come out and swim fast this weekend. A strong performance at the Bucknell Invitational and wins against some local rivals coming up mean that Georgetown will likely be peaking at an opportune time.