Tulane Aquatics Host Mardi Gras Invitational This Weekend
The Tulane swimming & diving team returns to home and gets back in the pool at the Reily Center Natatorium this week for the Mardi Gras Invitational from Jan. 16-17. The event is open to the public with all fans encouraged to park in Diboll Garage. Prior to Friday’s first dual meet of the day, the Tulane program will also host Senior Day for the team’s six seniors.
Live stats for the Mardi Gras Invite can be followed on Meet Mobile, which is a subscription phone-only live stat app as well as online at this link. The meet will also be streamed on the Tulane Athletics YouTube channel.
The other teams in competition at the multiple individual dual meets over the two days are North Texas, New Mexico and Little Rock. The meet is structured in a round-robin format where each team will face off against each other over the course of the two days.
Competition Begins Friday Afternoon
Tulane begins competing against North Texas at 3 p.m. on Friday in Meet A. New Mexico and Little Rock then swim against each other at 4:40 p.m. in Meet B. Three-meter diving finishes off the opening day at 6:45 p.m. The second day of competition will see Little Rock and North Texas start the morning and square off at 8:10 a.m. Tulane and New Mexico lock up against each other next at 9:50 a.m. in Meet D. One-meter diving on the second day’s early session is set for 12 p.m. The afternoon sessions begin at 1:30 p.m. with team diving. Meet E starts at 3:10 p.m. with North Texas and New Mexico competing. Little Rock and Tulane finish off the competition at 5 p.m. on Saturday night in Meet F. Points from each of the individual duals for all the teams will be totaled following the final event to determine a Mardi Gras Invitational winner. The point system being used is 5-3-2-1 for each of the swimming duals and the diving competitions
Six Tulane Seniors Recognized Friday
Emma Brady – Double major in International Relations and Philosophy
Taylor Cekay – Marketing major
Olcaytu Hatipoglu – Biomedical Engineering major and Electrical Engineering minor
Sydney Mullin – Real Estate major
Ece Tanriverdi – Communications major with a minor in Design and Computer Science
Andrea Zeebe – Neuroscience major and Psychology minor
Zeebe along with freshman Eliza Lennox were recognized by the American Conference on Jan. 13 as the Swimmer of the Week and the Freshman Swimmer of the Week, respectfully. Zeebe was the program’s top point contributor the past month at the UNLV Invite in the middle of last month and at the quad meet against Wisconsin, UC San Diego, and UCLA in California over the holiday break. At UNLV, Zeebe captured a win in both the 200 backstroke and the 400 IM, second place finishes in the 100 backstroke and the 800 free relay, plus a third-place ranking in the 200 IM, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay, and the 400 medley relay. Lennox was the team’s top freshman point contributor at UNLV and the quad meet against Wisconsin, UC San Diego, and UCLA. At the UNLV Invite, Lennox captured the victory in the 50 free, third place finishes in the 100 free, the 100 fly, the 400 free, the 200 medley, and the 400 medley relay.
Last time out, the Tulane swimming team were able to compete against three other opponents on the squad’s final day of training in San Diego on Jan. 3. The quad meet was held at Canyonview Aquatic Center in La Jolla, California on the campus of UC San Diego. In addition to UC San Diego and Tulane, the meet also featured Wisconsin and UCLA. The Green Wave ended up with 11 top 10 finishes on the afternoon
Next, Tulane swim finishes the regular season and heads to Pensacola, Florida to participate in a dual meet against the University of West Florida on Saturday, Jan. 24, starting at 10 a.m. CT.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.