Weekend Preview

Two marquee women's meets along with a Division III heavyweight battle highlight Week #5 of the college swimming season.  Week five also offers some other interesting conference and regional match-ups, with many Mid-Major teams looking to put up fast times in advance of the season's first Mid-Major ranking. 

Here's a dozen or so of the 157 meets on this weekend's schedule.

Texas A&M at Texas (W): The Lone Star Showdown, featuring two of the top eight programs in the country, takes place in Austin on Friday. The road team has won each of the last two seasons.This head-to-head meet features five different women with top three individual finishes at the NCAA Championships, four Olympians, and seemingly (but not really) every Big 12 champion swimmer over the past two seasons. Great potential first-time one-on-one match-ups include: 2009 NCAA 100 free runner-up Karlee Bispo against 2008 NCAA 100 free runner-up Julia Wilkinson'  Alia Atkinson, NCAA runner-up in the 200 breaststroke against the Longhorns breaststroke-heavy freshman class, two-time former National Swimmer of the Week Wilkinson vs. current National Swimmer of the Week Kathleen Hersey in the 200 IM, Hersey vs. 2007 Big 12 Swimmer of the Year Kristen Heiss in the 200 back. Wild cards include Longhorn sophomore Leah Gingrich, who has been swimming well over the past month, and A&M freshman Maureen McLaine, who burst onto the scene with solid performances in A&M’s win over Texas at the Big 12 Relays.The meet will be live streamed at texassports.com.

Stanford, Michigan at Florida (W): Another incredible women’s match-up (and Florida’s second in as many weeks after taking on Georgia in Athens). All three teams have NCAA champions on their roster in addition to 28 total All-Americans. The heavy hitters are abundant: Smit, Spofforth, Brueneman, Breeden, Stafford, Kelly…and that’s just where it starts. There will be four All-Americans in the diving well also with Stanford’s Meg Hostage and Carmen Stellar going against Florida’s Kara Salamone and Monica Dodson. The Wolverines will have faced four of the top 10 teams in the country over a span of eight days. One of two truly fantastic women’s meets this weekend.

Also keep an eye on:

Notre Dame at Purdue (M&W): The Irish men will be looking for their first win over their in-state rivals since 2006. The Irish women will be looking to even the all-time series after falling behind 5-6-1 last season.

South Carolina at Tennessee (M&W): Undefeated Vol men and Vol women (2-1) look to keep moving forward against South Carolina teams clawed by rival Clemson last weekend.

Boise State, New Mexico, Seattle at Utah (W): The Utes looks to keep things rolling following an upset of UNLV.

Kenyon vs. Denison (M&W): Kenyon won the NCAA title while Denison set beaucoup conference records a year ago. Kenyon, whose men scraped by Denison last year.

Big West Shootout: One of the best West Coast Mid-Major meets going this weekend. Live results will be posted at http://www.collegeswimming.us/results/calpoly/

Duke, Miami at Virginia Tech (M&W): Duke unbeaten divers (Nick McCrory, Ashley Twichell) face tough tests in Miami’s Reuben Ross and Va. Tech’s Erika Hajnal.

CAA Quad Meet: George Mason, Towson and UNC-Wilmington travels to Delaware in what could be a preview of the conference championship.

LSU at Alabama, Florida State (M&W): The Tiger men look to get back in the win column after battling Auburn and Tennessee in the past month. LSU’s women got their first with a victory over a revived Tulane squad last weekend. Bama holds close 6-4 and 5-4-1 records over the Tigers in the last 10 years.

Big East Speed Dating: On Friday, Pitt travels to Louisville and West Virginia is at Cincinnati while on Saturday Pitt is at Cincinnati while Louisville is at WVU.

USC Hosts Loaded Diving Field: The Trojans welcome Air Force, Cal, Cal. St. Bakersfield, Hawai’i, Stanford and UCLA in this diving only meet in SoCal.

Grand Opening: Rice opens the Gibbs Recreation & Wellness natatorium with a two day meet against Incarnate Word and New Orleans starting on Friday.

Big MAC Attack: An early-season litmus test awaits Toledo as the Rockets welcome two perennial MAC contenders  Miami and Ohio. Since the MAC Championships began, Miami (16) and OU (10) have won all but three titles. All three are also the lone three unbeaten teams in MAC this fall. "Those two have been the standard-bearers in the MAC," said head coach Lars Jorgensen. "and we're trying to get up to their level."