The Alabama swimming and diving teams will hold its last home meet as the members prepare for the biggest tournaments of the year.

The Crimson Tide will welcome Cincinnati on Friday for senior night. Senior captains Phillip Deaton and Emily Facchine said their final home event will be bittersweet.

“Its kind of exciting to be close to being done, but at the same time I will definitely miss it. It has been a huge blessing to be here and compete for the University of Alabama,” Deaton said.

Facchine said she agreed with Deaton on the emotional aspect and pondered the long term effects of finishing her career at Alabama.

“You think about being done [swimming], and what you are going to do when you are done, but I don’t think it really hits you until you stop practicing and competing,” she said.

Emotional aspect aside, the meet against Cincinnati has different implications. This is both team’s last meet before they send athletes to compete in the SEC Championships in Auburn.

Swimmers are looking to find out whether they will compete in these championships and how they will perform and will use the meet against Cincinnati as a measuring stick before the conference meet.

Coach Dennis Pursley said the meet will serve different purposes for different athletes.

“The core group of swimmers that have secured their spots on our championship teams, they will swim some events that they haven’t gotten to swim in past meets to help them prepare for these championships,” he said.

This meet will not only help these athletes prepare, but also give certain athletes an opportunity to make the cut for those championship teams. Pursley said the Cincinnati meet will help him see how his athletes measure up to expectations heading into these important tournaments.

“You hope that they will swim well, and carry that positive momentum into championship season,” he said.