The Utah men and women will host the Arizona State Sun Devils meet on Sunday, January 5th, at 1PM, and the meet will be special for two reasons. For the men’s team, it will be ‘senior day’ as the last time that the team’s three seniors, Ken Tiltges, Caleb Herrick, and Karson Applin, will compete at home; and it will also be the Utes’ first ever ‘black out’ meet, where the home team will be wearing all-black suits, all-black caps, and fans in attendance are encouraged to wear all-black.
The ‘color-out’ tradition has spread wide around college sports, beginning largely as a football and basketball thing, and now expanding to other sports. For example, Utah’s football team had a ‘blackout’ game against UCLA earlier this season, a game that UCLA won 34-27.
Both Arizona State and Utah stayed home for the winter (Arizona State is already in the warm climate of Tempe, and Utah went to Hawaii over their fall break), so this meet will be a welcome break from a few weeks of tough holiday training.
Both meets should be fairly competitive. Utah’s men should have the advantage, though some great diving battles between Josiah Purss and Riley McCormick could swing the margin, and the women’s meet should be fairly even. Take note that the Utes typically swim very well at home in what is not a very fast pool at the Utes Natatorium.
As competition heats back up this weekend, this is one of a handful of top-level meets coming up. On Friday, Arizona swims against New Mexico State, Northern Arizona, and Oregon State; Arizona State will also host Oregon State the day prior; Virginia Tech races Buffalo; the annual Florida-Florida State battle will rage in Gainesville on Friday; and the Mike Peppe Invitational (diving)/Orange Bowl Classic (swimming) will run in Southern Florida featuring Michigan Wolverines.