BAKERSFIELD, Calif.--The CSU Bakersfield men's and women's swimming teams head to Long Beach this week for the Arena Invitational.The meet will run from Thursday, Nov. 15-Saturday, Nov. 17. The prelims each day are set for 9 a.m. with the finals getting under way at 6 p.m.

Scheduled to compete on the men's side are Air Force, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Cal Poly, CSUB, Hawai'i, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, and the host, UC San Diego. Women's competition will feature Arizona State, BYU, Cal, Cal Poly, CSUB, Hawai'i, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, San Diego State, San Jose State, UCLA, and UC Santa Barbara.

"Our men need to prove we are not having an off year with so many youngsters," said CSUB director of swimming Chris Hansen. "We need to ride off the Arizona State win and go after these big schools. Mitch Wurm, Fran Cverle, Joao Foresto and Dan Wickensheimer will need to guide their young class and show them how to handle a meet of this caliber."

"Our women want to go and show these other schools where we are taking our program," Hansed commented. "This is not an easy field to make it back to finals without swimming your heart out in the prelims.  I want our team to be swimming at night and I want to beat some of these teams.  Cal won the NCAA Championship last year and we want to race them."

"Michaela Paige, Alex Daneke, Gabriel Bertrand and Mitchell Huxhold need to have big swims this weekend," Hansen said. "If they plan on making the NCAA Tournament they need to place big times and race the best in their field. Nicolette Goncalves, Lauren Kaufman, Louise Westergreen, Ali Gillespie, Jeanette Dove and Kelsey Lange are going to have to help step up our relays and score some big points if we want to beat some of these schools."

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