The Patriot League on Wednesday announced that its men’s and women’s swimming and diving championships have been cancelled.
The meet was originally scheduled for April 21-24 at Bucknell University. In lieu of one meet, the Patrio League is dividing championships into the “Patriot League Challenge” with meets at four sites.
Army and Navy will meet for a dual meet at West Point, already scheduled for April 17. Lafayette travels to Lehigh April 24-25. Boston University and Holy Cross will travel to Colgate for a tri-meet April 17-18. Bucknell will host American and Loyola April 10.
Many of the Patriot League teams have had limited schedules this season with a wide range in actual meets contested due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
From a league statement:
Patriot League contests and meets continue to be contingent on the League and its member institutions being able to conduct competition in ways that protect the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches, staff and their communities.
In a conversation with the Capital Gazette, Navy men’s swimming coach Bill Roberts and women’s swimming coach John Morrison took the news in stride. The removal of the Patriot League Championships from the schedule allows them to shift the focus to Olympic Trials in the spring.
“We love the Patriot League Championships. It’s our favorite meet,” Roberts said. “However, logistically it was just going to be too difficult to excel at Army and also get swimmers ready for Omaha. Olympic Trials happen once every four years so that is important for our athletes.”
Not sure why it took so long to make the announcement since individual schools already knew this weeks ago. Interesting that basketball can have their championships when the athletes are in much closer contact but swimmers cannot.