No. 1/19 Swim and Dive to Travel to No. 9/10 Stanford, No. 3/9 California

By: Olivia Dowell

TEMPE, Ariz.- A pair of ranked conference opponents will host No. 1/19 Sun Devil Swim and Dive this weekend as they will travel out to the Bay Area for a pair of meets that will begin the first two of three consecutive conference meets.
 
Both Sun Devil squads will compete at No. 9/10 Stanford (3 p.m. MST) before competing at No. 3/9 California the following day (Saturday, January 20 at 12:30 p.m. MST).
 
This will be the second and third times for the Sun Devils competing in 2024 as both programs picked up dominant wins over GCU on January 6 on Senior Day in the final meet of the season at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center. The Sun Devil men picked up a 232-66 win over the Lopes and the Sun Devil women won 247-53. The two programs combined for 30 event wins on Senior Day to start off 2024 on a high, dominant note.
 Live results can be tracked via the Meet Mobile app and Friday's meet will be broadcasted on the Stanford Live Stream and Saturday's will be broadcasted on the Cal Live Stream.
 
SUN DEVIL NOTABLES

• In his season debut, Zalan Sarkany made his mark and presence known to begin his sophomore campaign as he not only won the 1650 free and the 500 free, he also broke his own school record in the 1650 free with a 14:28.09 finish. While breaking the 1650 free record, he also broke the 1000 free in the same race with a time of 8:46.42. With his program record time, Sarkany's 1650 free time currently leads the nation. For his efforts against GCU, he was named Pac-12 Swimmer of the Week on January 9.
• In the big win over the Lopes last weekend, Erin Milligan, Lindsay Looney and Deniz Ertan combined for seven individual event wins for the Sun Devils as the Sun Devil women swept their events against the Lopes events last weekend.
• Milligan won all four events she competed in as she won all three freestyle events she swam (50 free, 100 free and 200 free) while also being a part of the victorious 400 free relay. This is the third time this season Milligan has won all of her events in a meet, doing so against UCLA and UNLV.
• The Sun Devil men currently hold a slew of the fastest times in Division I: 200 back (Hubert Kós/1:36.54), 200 IM (Kós/1:39.26), 400 IM (Kós/3:35.82), 200 fly (Ilya Kharun/1:38.11), 200 free relay (Cam Peel, Kharun, Jack Dolan and Jonny Kulow/1:14.64), 400 free relay (Dolan, Kharun, Patrick Sammon and Kulow/2:46.57)  and 400 medley relay (Dolan, David Schlicht, Kharun and Kulow/3:01.60).
• Lindsay Looney swept the butterfly events as she swam a 1:54.21 in the 200 fly and a 53.10 in the 100 fly, her second meet in a row sweeping the butterfly events.

 
OPPONENT OUTLOOK
No. 9/10 Stanford

• The No. 10 Stanford women are coming off competition at the UCLA Diving Invite where junior Lauren Burch earned two top-10 event finishes over the weekend. Over break, the Cardinal's Torri Huske collected four medals at the U.S. Open Championships, including the gold in the 100m fly. Diver Emilie Moore competed at the USA Diving Nationals where she earned a silver medal in the 10-meter synchro finals. The Cardinal swimmers mostly recently competed in the Texas Swim Invite in mid-November where Lucy Bell and Caroline Bricker had top-10 times in Stanford history in the 400 IM.
• The No. 9 Stanford men began their 2024 slate with a home meet with Pacific where they won the meet 181-35. It marked the season debut for Olympians Andrei Minakov and Ron Polonsky, as well as former U.S. junior national Zhier Fan.
• The Cardinal women won the Pac-12 Championships last season as Huske was named Pac-12 Swimmer of the Meet for the second consecutive season. The team placed third at NCAA Championships. The Cardinal men finished third at Pac-12s and eighth at NCAA's as the team's finish at NCAA Championships.

 
No. 3/9 California

• The No. 3 California men are the reigning NCAA champions, a feat they've accomplished the previous two seasons. The No. 9 Bears women took third at the 2023 Pac-12 Championships and 11th at NCAA's in Knoxville.
• Both programs last competed at the Minnesota Invite where both programs took home first place finishes. The Cal men have a dual victory over Pittsburgh and the Bears women are 3-0 in duals wih wins over Washington State, UCSD and Pittsburgh. The Bears will host Pac-12 opponent Arizona on Friday prior to hosting the Sun Devils.
• For the Bears women, they return junior Isabelle Stadden who took third at NCAA Championships last season in the 200 back. The Cal men return senior Destin Lasco, who is the reigning NCAA champion in the 200 back. At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, junior Jack Alexy earned five medals and Dare Rose earned three.

MEET WEEK READING
2023 was a historic year for Sun Devil Swim and Dive with a lot of accomplishments to be proud of and the year capped off with awards for head coach Bob Bowman, junior Léon Marchand and Kharun.
 
Bowman was named the U.S. Coach of the Year by SwimSwam, Marchand was named both the European Swimmer of the Year by SwimSwam and World Male Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World and Kharun was named World Junior Male Swimmer of the Year by SwimSwam.
 
Marchand, Kharun and Bowman Earn Swim Swam and Swimming World Honors
 
LOOKING AHEAD
Both diving programs will travel to Colorado for the Air Force Invite at the U.S. Air Force Academy from February 1 through February 3. All programs will travel down to Tucson for the regular season finale against in-state rival No. 20/NR Arizona (February 10 at 12 p.m. MST).