The Horizon League has announced that they will be postponing their conference championship meet, moving it from February 17-20 to April 8-10, with diving taking place on the 5th and 6th: prior to the swimming. The meet is still scheduled to take place at the IU Natatorium on the IUPUI campus.
Guided by the principle of safety, the championships were developed in consultation with League membership and are aligned with League-wide safety protocols, overseen by the Horizon League Board of Directors.
The conference is now at least the fifth at the Division I level to postpone their championship meet until after NCAAs, joining the Mid-American Conference (MAC), who made the announcement last October, the Missouri Valley Conference, the Big East, and the trans-division Pacific Collegiate Swim & Dive Conference.
This date shift now means that athletes won’t have the opportunity to use the Horizon League Championships as a qualifying meet for the 2021 Championships. The men’s NCAA Championship meet is currently scheduled for March 24-27, while the women will swim the week before, from March 17-20.
While the Horizon League didn’t have any athletes qualified for last season’s canceled NCAA Championship meet, the conference does occasionally send qualifiers. At the 2019 NCAA Championship meet, for example, IUPUI senior Krisztian Somhegyi finished 13th on platform. The Oakland University men, as another example, scored at the 2016 NCAA Championships thanks to then-freshman Devon Nowicki; Cleveland State junior Philipp Sikatzki finished 4th in the 100 fly that year as well.
Most famously, Milwaukee’s Emily McClellan earned All-America honors in 2013 and 2014, including a runner-up finish at NCAAs in the 100 breast in 2014.
This change of date could also create a conflict for athletes whose home countries have Olympic Trials events during April.
So far this season only one member of the conference, Youngstown State, has competed in a meet. The school hosted Ohio in November and Gannon in January, as well as traveling to the Miami (Ohio) Invitational at the beginning of December.
At last year’s Horizon League Swim and Dive Championships Oakland swept both sides in dominant fashion. The Golden Grizzlies won on both sides by over 200 points, marking the 7th straight title for both teams. The men went on to win the CSCAA National Invitational, topping Texas Christian by 16 points. Oakland will kick off their season this weekend as they play host to Division II Grand Valley State University.