The Michigan men's swimming team is set to meet its match today in Gainesville, Fla., when the Wolverines get on the blocks next to their southern counterparts in their second dual meet of the season.

"Traditionally, we have been pretty even with Florida," Michigan associate head coach Eric Namesnik said.

He's not kidding. In the past four years, Michigan has enjoyed two victories over Florida and suffered two losses. According to Namesnik, the Wolverines can learn a lot from this weekend.

"This meet should be a good measuring stick on how we'll fare later on down the road, because we're very similar teams," Namesnik said.

The assistant coach went on to say that the Michigan and Florida swimmers are very compatible and that their strengths and weaknesses complement each other.

To prepare for the event, the Wolverines are not focusing on any one aspect of their training. Since it is still so early in the season, overall performance improvement is what the swimmers and divers are working toward.

"This is only our second meet, so we're still getting the cobwebs off," Namesnik said. "We're going to have to rely on the strength of our upperclassmen, who have experience and know what (collegiate competition) is like."

There are several upperclassman standouts that will lead the Michigan swimmers this year.

Junior Dan Ketchum, a distance swimmer, was named Michigan's Male Athlete of the Year last season. Ketchum has earned seven NCAA All-American honors thus far in his career.

Fifth-year senior and three-time NCAA All-American Jeff Hopwood is a world-class competitor when it comes to the breaststroke. The current co-captain competed in the sixth annual FINA World Swimming Championships last April.

Namesnik also mentioned sophomore distance swimmers Andrew Hurd and Brendan Neligan as being essential in leading this year's team.

"We're also going to rely on some of our freshmen to step up for us," Namesnik said.

Backstroke and freestyle swimmer Chris Dejong is one of the freshmen that

Namesnik referred to, along with butterfly/freestyle swimmer Davis Tarwater and distance swimmer Peter Vanderkaay.

Today's meet begins at 6 p.m.