ASU Swim & Dive: The women look to steal a win from the Jayhawks

(Photo: Rachel Phillips/WCSN)

The Sun Devils women’s swimming and diving team will look to bolster its season with a win over Kansas when the Sun Devils host the undefeated Jayhawks in Tempe on Saturday.

The meet is set for 12 p.m. MST, in what will be their first meeting since 2009.

This week’s duel meet will see the swimmers dive into a 50 meter pool, in what threatens to be a difficult clash for ASU.

“It’ll be long course, so that’ll be different,” coach Bob Bowman said. “Just more tough racing.”

While winning the meet is important, Bowman insists the focus is predominantly on the upcoming Pac-12 and NCAA meets.

“The duel meets come up as they come up and we want to do as well as we can but it’s all sort of a process,” Bowman said.

Despite the devils losing out narrowly to Northwestern last Saturday, there were some standout performances.

The most impressive coming from Pac-12 Swimmer of the Week Camryn Curry who in a time of 50.91, led an ASU trifecta home in the 100 free and also touched first (23.06) in the 50 free, which according to Curry, are some of her best in-season times.

The junior said she is eager to see what times she can post during Saturday’s long course meet.

“Just like getting a variation of short course and long course and comparing where I am right now in the season… I’m excited,” Curry said.

Curry was not the only ASU swimmer who notched up wins against Northwestern, with the 200 free relay team touching first and Chloe Isleta securing gold in the 200 back.

Emma Nordin, Erica Laning, Claire Nguyen and Kendall Dawson finished one-two-three-four in the 500 free, while both Nordin and Nguyen also managed to finish one-two in the 1000 free.

Kansas will attempt to carry its dominant start to the season into its first meet of the new year, with Big 12 swimmer of the week (Dec. 4) Manon Manning leading the charge. Manning claimed the 2019 Kansas Classic Swimmer of the Meet on Nov. 24 on the back of her 100 and 200-yard backstroke wins.

Another KU swimmer to watch is Kate Steward, who also had a weekend to remember at the Kansas Classic, breaking the Kansas record in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:11.99.

“January is going to be rough for us, we have meets except for like one weekend,” Curry said. “It gets us ready to go for Pac’s and get some great racing in.”

ASU will need dominant swims from Curry, Isleta, Nordin and Nguyen if they have any hope of beating the 4-0 Jayhawks at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center on Saturday.