With the holiday break now behind them, the men and women of the University of Utah diving teams will be escaping the Salt Lake snow and heading to the palm trees and sunshine for the UCLA Diving Invitational.

The Utes will have to shake off the rust, as they have not been in competition since the 6th and 7th of December, where many standout performances showed through at the Utah Diving Invitational. With an overall record of 1-3 for men’s and 2-3 for women’s the Utes are in desperate need of a momentum boost.

The Utes will definitely have their work cut out for them, as the UCLA Bruins are riding a wave of success and impressive performances. With an official record of 7-0, UCLA will prove to be a daunting competitor. Utah will be looking to athletes such as Luke McDivitt, Tony Chen, Emma Ruchala, and Lizzy DeCecco to act as anchors for the program.

While it has been a long time since the diving Utes were in competition, the men’s divers did come away in a respectable second placement at the Georgia Tech Invitational. Should the strong performances shown at Georgia Tech were to make a return, Utah would have a strong chance of placing well in the Golden State.

As for the swimmers of the U, they will play host to the Pioneers of Denver University. The Utes had an exciting moment in Minnesota, where Robert King missed an Olympic qualifying time by less than a second, and Felix Chiun fell short of the Olympic mark by 67 hundredths of a second.

With several swimmers knocking on the door to being able to compete at the highest level, Utah would do well to take this excitement and put it to work against Denver.

Ute loyalists can catch their teams in action this Saturday at 11 a.m. mountain time at the Ute Natatorium. Competition for the divers will take place Jan. 17-19 in Los Angeles.

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