Pac-12 Weekly Preview: Arizona, Arizona State Face USC, UCLA

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

The Pac-12 Conference continues its swimming & diving season with the first relatively full-slate week of competition as far as dual meets are concerned.

This is the week where the schools from Arizona come to California and face the schools from Los Angeles in a two-day period in the Pac-12.

Arizona will swim at UCLA on Friday, while Arizona State swims at USC.

Then on Saturday, Arizona will swim at USC and Arizona State will swim at UCLA.

It is one of the interesting scheduling quirks of the Pac-12 and cuts down on travel for each school as they can have to quality meets just miles apart in two days rather than make the trip twice.

It will be interesting to see what some of the early-season swims look like for these teams.

USC has competed in the Trojan invite and also a dual with Utah, but will be tested more this weekend.

UCLA has faced just Utah, while Arizona has faced Oregon State and Grand Canyon.

Arizona State has had pretty tough competition already this year, splitting a dual meet with No. 1 Florida State last week.

So this will be a big week for all four schools, with two strong dual meets in a single weekend for each team.

Who will have the early breakout swim? Will it be UCLA’s Sandra Soe? Maybe Arizona State’s Cierra Runge? Could be USC’s Patrick Mulcare or Riley Scott? We know Louise Hansson will be fast. How fast will Katrina Konopka of Arizona be at this point?

This is where the fun speculation begins about how the elite swimmers will open the season and what that could mean for their training and finish at the end of the season.

Dual meets don’t always tell a whole lot, but these duals should give everyone a little big of a gauge on what to expect this season.

Also on Friday, Washington State hosts Cal and NAU.

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Duncan

5 years ago

“Arizona State has had pretty tough competition already this year, splitting a dual meet with No. 1 Florida State last week.”
While they have fine teams for both men and women, I’m pretty sure Florida State isn’t ranked No. 1 in any recognized poll for either. Might you be intending, instead, to reference Florida, which ASU has not had the opportunity to compete against this year.