The No. 6 Arizona men’s swimming and diving teams are nearing the end of their season this week with the NCAA Championships that begin today in Atlanta, and run through Saturday.

The Championships will take place at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, with preliminaries starting at noon and finals beginning at 7 p.m. each day of the Championships.

The Wildcats (6-2) will take nine swimmers and one diver to the event. The team finished fourth at the Pacific 10 Conference Championships, capturing 11 NCAA automatic qualifying times and 20 consideration times.

Last year, the men finished third in the Championships out of 56 teams. This year the team is looking to battle conference rivals No.1 Stanford (6-0), No. 3 California (6-1) and No. 4 Southern California (6-3), squads that all finished ahead of the Wildcats in the Pac-10’s.

The relay team of seniors Simon Burnett, Lyndon Ferns, Tyler DeBerry and junior Adam Ritter is coming off a Pac-10 victory in the 800-yard freestyle relay, where Arizona set a new meet and school record in 6:18.70.

Ferns and Burnett are looking to cash in on their momentum from the Pac-10 Championships, with each of them taking a conference title – Ferns in the 100y butterfly and Burnett in the 200y freestyle relay.

Senior diver John Collier will be joining the men as well, as he’s the only Wildcat to place in the 1-meter and 3m competitions at the Zone E Diving Championships.

Senior Dave Rollins, sophomores Albert Subirats and Ivan Barnes and freshmen Nicolas Nilo and Nick Thoman will also compete for the Wildcats.

Arizona has eight returning NCAA athletes. Burnett is looking to repeat his 2005 200y freestyle victory, which he won in 2003 as well.