ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T will host the first of two home swimming meets in a span of eight days on Friday evening, taking on Southern Illinois University at the S&T Pool at the Gale Bullman Multi-Purpose Building at 5 p.m.

The Miners, who will also resume its long-time series with Missouri State on Jan. 25, are coming off a trip to San Diego in which they competed and performed well in a pair of meets at the University of California-San Diego.  Missouri S&T had
five event victories in Friday's meet with UC San Diego and Incarnate Word, while winning four Saturday while facing UCSD and Cal State-Bakersfield.

Missouri S&T, currently eighth in the CSCAA national rankings for NCAA Division II, have six members of their squad already qualified for the national meet slated to take place in March in Birmingham, Ala. Seniors Andrew Schranck (Alton, Ill./Marquette Catholic) and Jacob Dole (Corbin, Ky./Country Day School), junior Matt Zieger (St. Joseph, Mo./Central) and freshmen Keith Sponsler (Lincoln, Neb./Lincoln East), Aljaz Kerc (Ljubljana, Slovenia/Gimnazija Bezigrad) and Danylo Mykhailov (Khankiv, Ukraine/Sport Collegue N.S.) have all earned their spots in the national field.

Heading into competition this weekend, Kerc owns the sixth-fastest time in NCAA Division II in the 100-yard freestyle of 44.81 seconds, while Mykhailov has the seventh-best time nationally in the 50-yard freestyle of 20.40 seconds.  Kerc is also ninth in the 200-breaststroke with a time of 2:00.45.

Dole's mark of 44.88 seconds in the 100-freestyle ranks ninth in the nation, while his best time of 20.50 seconds in the 50-freestyle is 13^th.  Schranck has the 14^th-fastest mark in the 100-butterfly of 49.22 seconds.

In addition, two other Miners who have not made an automatic qualifying time to date rank among the top 10 in the nation in their events.  Ethan Goldfarb (Arlington, Texas/The Oakridge School) has the third-best time in the country in the 400-yard individual medley of 3:55.42 as well as the sixth-best in the 200-yard breaststroke of 1:59.61, while Luke Norris (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands)' mark of 1:38.93 in the 200-freestyle ranks 10^th.

Southern Illinois will be competing for the first time since taking part in the USA National Championships in late November in Austin, Texas.