Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
By Sarah Lloyd, Swimming World College Intern
This was a busy week for the Pac-12 teams, from senior days, ranked match ups, and upsets, here are the top 5 stories from the teams out west.
Top Stories This Week:
- The No. 7 USC women upset the No. 3 California women on Friday. Maybe California had an off day, maybe USC had a really good day, maybe it was a combination of the two, but it was definitely a shock to the system for California. With really strong swims from USC freshman Riley Scott and junior Anika Apostalon, the Trojan women could pose a major threat to some of the established hierarchy of Pac-12 swimming at the conference championship.
- The No. 2 Stanford women are still undefeated, but that’s not really a surprise at this point. Ranked second in the country behind the Georgia women, Stanford is looking strong going into the final stretch of their season. Janet Hu and Lia Neal among others, are going to play major rolls for this team come championship season.
- B cuts on B cuts on B cuts. More than a dozen women from the Pac-12 put their names into the selection pool for the NCAA Championship this weekend. By the time a shave and taper meet comes around, we should see that number increase dramatically, as well as those women with B cuts already edge closer to A cuts or jump atop the selection group.
- Barriers. The number of women under the barriers in events–the 50.00 barrier in the 100 free, the 10:00 barrier in the 1000 free–is impressive, especially considering that these women are not shaved, tapered, or suited. There have been a few women–Apostalon for one–that have even been under 49.00 (Apostalon was a 48.85 in the 100 free in the dual against California).
- The No. 15 Arizona men have some good sprinters–good enough to sweep the event against the No. 1 Texas men. Two of the three men in the event were under 21, the third being just over 21 with a 21.01, which bodes really well for a good showing at the conference championship in three weeks.
Weekly Meet Schedule Recap:
[table “” not found /]Featured Meets This Week:
The Horns were just toying with Arizona. They didn’t even bring most of their best guys to the meet. The winning time for Arizona in their sweep of the 50 Free that was so impressive is the 279th fastest time this season. I think we’ll be just fine come NCAAs. Hook ‘Em!