What Lies Ahead in the Big Ten

By Andy Ross, Swimming World Big Ten Beat Writer

This weekend coming up is the last major weekend for duel meets for the Big Ten teams as we are three weeks from the women’s meet and four weeks from the men’s meet. The majority of the teams will be in non-conference action as the season is quickly coming to a close.

Northwestern is hosting a two day tri-meet with Minnesota and Purdue as the only meet on the weekend strictly between Big Ten teams. Ohio State is hosting a quad meet with arch-rival Michigan and is also hosting nearby Buffalo and West Virginia on the 30th right after their meet with Kentucky on Friday night. It’ll be interesting to see how Sam Harding of Minnesota does against Kaersten Meitz of Purdue. Meitz went 9:44 in the 1000 last week against Indiana while Harding has been 9:51 this season.

As far as the Big Meet (Michigan-OSU) is concerned, the matchup of the meet could be Matt McHugh of Ohio State and Dylan Bosch of Michigan. McHugh finished in the top eight at NCAAs in the all-Texas heat while Bosch was third in the 200 at the same meet. McHugh has the top time in the 100 fly in the conference this year while Bosch is third. On the women’s side, Lindsey Clary of Ohio State will matchup against Gillian Ryan in the 500 that is an intriguing matchup as well as against Marni Oldershaw in the 400 IM.

Rutgers and Penn State were forced to cancel their meets last weekend due to Snowzilla on the east coast but will make up those meets this coming weekend. Penn State will take on Navy Friday night while Rutgers will take on New Hampshire on Saturday.

A few Big Ten teams are going against SEC opponents. Illinois will travel to Fayetteville and take on Arkansas. Ohio State will host Kentucky and Wisconsin will be on a road trip and swim Auburn on Friday and Georgia on Saturday. The big matchup of the weekend will be in the distance freestyle events as Danielle Valley of Wisconsin will face off against 2014 Swimmer of the Year Brittany MacLean of Georgia as well as the rest of the talented Georgia distance crew. This weekend probably won’t solve the debate on what conference is better between the Big Ten and the SEC but it will be intriguing to see how they turn out. Wisconsin has had the longest hiatus in competition as they haven’t competed since taking on USC in LA on January 12 after their training trip and will be facing stiff competition down south.

[table “” not found /]

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use