With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 raging across the country, another wave of collegiate swim meets have been canceled for this coming weekend.
Grand Canyon, New Mexico State, Ottawa Cancellations
Grand Canyon’s scheduled meets against New Mexico State and Ottawa University (Arizona) were canceled. New Mexico State says that the cancelation was due to COVID-19 protocols in the Grand Canyon program, and then Ottawa choose not to attend the meet either.
Grand Canyon in turn has withdrawn its divers from next week’s UCLA Diving Invitational “due to the rising COVID-19 cases on the Bruins campus.”
UCLA began its Winter quarter with remote learning for 2 weeks, and the school’s COVID-19 dashboard does not show a rise in COVID-19 cases – though Los Angeles County, where UCLA is located, currently has the state’s highest reported infection rate.
Grand Canyon is scheduled to return to competition on January 15 when they host Concordia. The New Mexico State Aggies are now scheduled to return to action on Jan. 22 when they travel to Flagstaff, Ariz., to take on Northern Arizona. Following the dual with the Lumberjacks, NM State will have two meets left on the schedule before they make the trip to Houston, Texas, to compete in the WAC Championships on Feb. 23-26.
West Virginia vs. Pitt Postponed
A dual meet between West Virginia and Pitt, as part of the two teams’ “Backyard Brawl” rivalry series, has been postponed, with West Virginia saying that it was “due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols within the Pitt swimming and diving program.”
The two schools are located about 75 miles apart across the state line. The men’s teams have traded wins for the last 7 years, including a 193-107 victory by Pitt at home last season. The Pitt women, meanwhile, have been dominant in the series recently, taking 9 straight wins.
The meet has been rescheduled for January 17 at 3PM with West Virginia still hosting.
IUPUI, UIC, Cleveland State Triple Dual Canceled
Horizon League foes IUPUI, UIC, and Cleveland State canceled a scheduled triple dual on Friday (January 7) and Saturday (January 8) due to “COVID-19 issues.”
The meet will not be rescheduled.
UIC said that there were “COVID-related matters within the program,” while Cleveland State has been silent on the meet.
This would have been a benchmark meet for all three programs ahead of February’s conference championship meet. Last season, at the women’s championship, UIC finished 2nd, IUPUI finished 4th, and Cleveland State finished 5th among 6 teams. In the men’s meet, Cleveland State finished 2nd, UIC 3rd, and IUPUI 4th. Oakland won both team titles.
Azusa Pacific Cancels Alumni Meet
Another Los Angeles school, Azusa Pacific canceled its alumni meet scheduled for Saturday because of rising local case numbers.