CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia men's and women's swimming teams will open the season this Friday, Sept. 25, with a College Swimming League match. As we near the competition, here are some basics on the CSL.
All matches will stream online on either ESPN+ or SEC Network+.
The league features 12 of the nation's top teams: Alabama, Auburn, Cal, Georgia, Indiana, Louisville, Michigan, NC State, Ohio State, Stanford, Tennessee and Virginia.
Virginia will swim in Match 2 on Friday, Sept. 25 against Alabama, Georgia and NC State.
The season consists of six regular-season matches and two post-season matches. Each team will compete in two regular-season matches. Teams ranked 1-3 in the league will automatically advance to the final, while teams ranked 4-7 will meet in the wild card match, with only one advancing to the final. Teams 8-12 in the standings will not advance.
Each regular-season match includes four teams. The top team in each match scores four points, 2nd place three points, 3rd place two points, and 4th place one point. Match scoring is combined for each school.
The matches are dual gender. Points earned in men’s and women’s events accumulate to a single team score for each institution.
Each team has a roster of 28 swimmers (14 male and 14 female).
Each school must enter two athletes in every event and will field two relay teams in relay events. Each athlete may enter up to three individual events and two relay events. Super Skins count as a relay event. Skins does not count toward athlete event limits.
Skins events are elimination-style individual races contested over 50 yards per round. The same stroke is used in every round, with the top finishers advancing to the next round. A single stroke is contested in all four rounds of the Skins event. The stroke may be any of Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, or Freestyle. The institution that wins the corresponding gender's 4x50 Freestyle Relay (Event 7 for Women's Skins; Event 8 for Men's Skins) selects the stroke.
Super Skins are elimination-style relay events in which all rounds are contested as a full 200 Medley Relay (4x50). Teams are eliminated each round.
Both Skins and Super Skins formats follow the same elimination structure, cumulative scoring system, between-rounds procedures, and tied-place advancement rules. Stroke selection applies to Skins only, as every round of Super Skins is contested as a 200 Medley Relay in fixed stroke order.
In addition to the point system at the bottom of this article, winning swimmers can “jackpot” additional points off of lower-finishing swimmers. This is similar to the International Swimming League’s “jackpot” system.
Event Order
- 500 free
- 200 breast
- 200 back
- 200 free relay
- 200 fly
- 100 IM
- 100 back
- 100 free
- Skins
- 200 IM
- 100 breast
- 50 free
- 100 fly
- 200 free
- Super Skins (200 medley relay)