Women of Troy set to travel up north


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The No. 12 ranked women’s swimming and diving team will head northbound to duel No. 1 California and No. 3 Stanford on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

USC is ranked No. 12 (4-1, 3-1) in the latest College Swimming Coaches Association of America while Cal (5-1, 4-0) is tied with Georgia at No. 1 and Stanford  (5-1, 4-0) is ranked No. 3.

U.S. Olympic gold medalist and Cal sophomore Missy Franklin is just one of the Bears’ swimmers boasting a top-10 time.

Juniors Elizabeth Pelton and Rachel Bootsma as well as freshman Cierra Runge are also in the top 10.

Franklin holds the NCAA’s best time in the 200-yard free and is second in the 200-yard back and 200-yard IM. Pelton is first in the 200-yard back and 200-yard IM and third in the 100-yard back. Bootsma is second in the 100-yard back. Runge is second in the 500-yard free.

After facing the NCAA’s best team, the Trojans will face another top-five opponent in the Cardinal.

Stanford is led by freshman Simone Manuel, who has the nation’s top times in the 50-yard and 100-yard free and is second in the 200-yard free. Senior Maddy Schaefer is fourth in the 50-yard free and 11th in the    100-yard free, sophomore Lia Neal is third in the 100-yard free and seventh in the 200-yard free, while freshman Janet Hu has top times in a variety of events.

The Trojans have top-25 swimmers of their own, including sophomore Chelsea Chenault’s time of 1:45.31 in the 200-yard free (14th) and 4:42.44 in the 500-yard free (21st).

Freshman Hannah Weiss posted  52.23 in the 100-yard back (13th). Junior Kendyl Stewart’s time of 51.99 in the 100-yard fly is the NCAA’s sixth best, and her time of 1:54.20 in the 200-yard back ranks her at 21st.

Senior Andrea Kropp’s 1:00.01 in the 100-yard breast is 13th, her time of 2:09.32 in the 200-yard breast is No. 10, and her time of 1:56.99 in the 200-yard IM is ninth best.

Rounding out USC’s top-25 swimmers is junior Jasmine Tosky’s 10th place time of 1:55.59 in the 200-yard fly, 22nd best time of 2:11.08 in the 200-yard breast, and her 21st ranked time of 4:12.05 in the 400-yard IM.

Aside from coaching his       No. 12 ranked Trojans, head coach Dave Salo was named USA Swimming’s national women’s head coach for the 2015 FINA World Championships. Salo, now in his ninth year as the Trojans men’s and women’s coach, will join U.S. men’s coach Dave Durden, who coaches the men’s team at Cal. The 2015 FINA World Championships will be held from Jul. 24 to   Aug. 9 in Kazan, Russia. Salo will be serving as the U.S. women’s head coach at the Worlds for the second time, as he coached the team in 2013 at the games in Barcelona.

In other national news, junior Kendyl Stewart was among five swimmers who were nominated for USA Swimming’s Breakout Performer of the Year at the 2014 Golden Goggles in November.  She earned the nomination after winning a bronze in the 100-meter fly and a silver in the 400-meter medley relay at the 2014 Pan Pacs.

She also won her first career U.S. titles with victories in the 50-meter and 100-meter fly at the 2014 U.S. Summer Nationals.

The swimming and diving meet against the Bears will be televised live on Pac-12 Networks beginning at 2 p.m. The diving portion of the meet will begin with 1-meter at 11:45 a.m. followed by 3-meter at 1 p.m. The meet against the Cardinal begins at noon.