It is a routine that never gets old.

For the ninth straight season, Western will go into their third meet of the year undefeated.

The Toppers (4-0 men, 4-0 women), take their unblemished record to Atlanta to square off with the Georgia Tech on Saturday.

The dual meet against the Yellow Jackets (1-2 men, 3-3 women) is the first ever between both teams.

The two teams competed against each other along with four other teams in the Georgia Tech Invitational Nov. 18-20, 2005. The men finished third, while the women finished fourth.

“The difference this time is we’ll see the best from both teams,” coach Bruce Marchionda said. “In an invitational, you don’t get their whole team like you do when you go head to head.”

This meet will feature two completely different Division I swimming programs.

Georgia Tech is a fully funded Division I school in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Western is a Division I mid-major school not fully funded in the Sun Belt Conference. These circumstances makes a big difference in the number of scholarships a school can give out.

“Beating a Division I school that people have actually heard of would give a nice ring to our program,” junior Trey Chelf said. “It would really say a lot.”

The Lady Jackets are coming off a sweep in a quad meet at Florida Gulf Coast University. During the meet they broke five school records.

“We are going to treat this meet like any other meet,” freshman Kaitlyn Casper said. “We are just going to have to swim faster than last weekend and step it up a notch.”

The Toppers will look for their team chemistry to help pull them through against the ACC school, junior Jennifer Adams said.

The freshman class will be looking to build on last week’s success. Many of them had impressive finishes in various events, such as Claire Donahue in the 200-yard butterfly, Greg Gerum in the 400-yard freestyle relay, Casper in the 100-yard freestyle, and Brittany Doss in the 200-yard breast stroke.

“We will be mentally prepared for the meet,” Adams said. “I’ve never swam in a dual meet since I’ve been here and our team is really coming together.”

Action will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.

Reach Kori Farr at sports@chherald.com.