The Utah swim and dive team is on its way to the Ohio Swim Invitational in Columbus, Ohio, at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion. The meet will begin on Friday, Nov. 18 and go through Sunday, Nov. 20.
Head coach Joe Dykstra said he is looking forward to the level of competition at the event.
“The line-up of teams is very impressive and we are looking forward to racing and diving against some of the very best in the NCAA, including multiple NCAA event champions and Olympians,” Dykstra said in a recent press release.
The team has lightened their training load going into this meet in order to be more fresh for the stiff competition expected in Columbus. The Utes will be a part of a 10 team field for the event including host Ohio State, Iowa, Yale, Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Kenyon, Penn State, Stanford (women only) and Washington State (women only).
Expected to compete well this weekend is Rahiti De Vos. The freshman from Nice, France, is coming off a victory in the 1,000 freestyle against UNLV with a time of 9:20.69. Rahiti believes that he is still looking for his fastest finish.
“I’ve never really swam yards before I came to Utah, and so I don’t really know what my fastest time is,”Rahiti said. “I am excited to swim faster every event and see exactly where I stand.”
Also swimming well for the Utes is junior Dorien Butter. Butter is part of the women’s 400 medley relay team that beat the Rebels in Las Vegas earlier in the month. She also finished at the top of the podium in the 100 free.
“I don’t think that there is a specific event that we need to win this weekend,” Butter said. “We need to be strong everywhere, and luckily we are deep all across the board. We have really strong distance swimmers, incredible sprinters, and our relay and IM swimmers are really deep as well.”
This weekend marks another opportunity for junior Jack Burton to extend his unbeaten streak in the 100 and 200 breast. The team will be wearing special suits this weekend designed to make them faster in the water, and the coaches are expecting to see season bests as well as lifetime bests for the majority of their swimmers.
In diving, senior Amanda Casillas looks to replicate her victory against UNLV in the one-meter event while sophomore Connor Cain looks to repeat in the one-meter and three-meter.
This weekend will be the last opportunity for the men and women to compete together before the holidays as the men will travel to Laramie to face the Wyoming Cowboys on Dec. 3, while the women will take on Boise State the same day.