Courtesy: Utah Athletics
SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah swimming and diving head coach Jonas Persson has announced his team’s schedule for the 2023-24 season and it includes 20 regular season meets, five of which will be at home before the Pac-12 Championships in February and March.
“I’m excited about our schedule,” said Persson. “We have some really nice conference meets scheduled this year, which we are excited about. It’s going to be a lot of fun to host LSU in early October, a team that we have not swam against in a really long time. UNLV is a team that we’ve swam against at that time of the year for many, many years and it is always competitive and fun.”
The Utes will be participating in 11 total dual meets and three diving invitationals across a slate that will take them to 10 different states and stretches from September through March.
“We’ve got a strong competition schedule that allows us to compete against the best divers in the country on a regular basis,” said head diving coach Richard Marschner. “I believe the best way to prepare for competitions is to compete and compete often. That way when we get to Pac12’s, Zones and NCAA’s, we are ready for everything and have seen, and hopefully beaten, some of the best divers in the nation.”
A pair of exhibitions will give Persson’s people their first chance to get in the pool, starting with the team’s intrasquad meet on Sept. 15 and an alumni meet on Sept. 22. On Sept. 29 and 30, the Utes will get their regular season underway when they visit Colorado Mesa University for the CMU Intermountain Shootout.
The first home meet of Utah’s 2023-24 campaign will take place on Oct. 7, when they’ll host the LSU Tigers inside the Ute Natatorium at 10 a.m. The Utes will be attempting to earn a victory in their first men’s and women’s home dual meet for the second consecutive year, after downing UNLV by scores of 193-105 and 196-101 in 2022.
On Oct. 21, the squad will travel to Long Beach, California for the MPSF Open Water Swimming Championships, followed by a home meet against Arizona on Oct. 27. The Utes begin November by visiting UNLV for a dual meet on the 4th, then splitting the squad for the Texas A&M Invitational on Nov. 15-17 and the CMU Invitational on Nov. 15-18. The Ute Natatorium will host a dual meet against Arizona State on the 20th before the swimmers head to Greensboro, N.C., the site of the US Open, which will take place from Nov. 29 – Dec. 2
The final month of 2023 will see the Utah’s divers compete at the Princeton Diving Invitational on Dec. 1-3, while the swimmers will be at home for the Utah Winter Classic on Dec. 16.
The Utes will begin 2024 back in their own pool for a dual meet against Colorado Mesa on Jan. 5 to kickoff a busy month. The divers will be at the UCLA Diving Invitational on Jan. 12-14, while the swimmers will travel to USC for dual meet on the 12th, followed by a meeting with the Bruins one day later. Utah’s men’s swimmers will close out January by taking on Wyoming on the 19th.
February starts with a women’s dual meet at Washington State on the 2nd and a trip for the divers to the Northern Arizona Diving Invitational on Feb. 2-4. The final two dual meets on the docket include a two-day tilt at BYU on Feb. 9-10 and a men’s dual meet with USC on Feb. 17.
The Utes will make the first of two trips to Federal Way, Washington for the Pac-12 Diving and Women’s Swimming Championships, which will be held on Feb. 28 – March 2. The men’s swimmers will get their chance on March 6-9 for the Pac-12 Men’s Swimming Championships and Utah’s divers will be at NCAA Diving Zones on the 11th – 13th. All eyes will then turn to the Women’s NCAA Championships on March 20-23 and the Men’s NCAA Championships on the 27-30.
“We round out our schedule with some rival meets,” said Persson, “which always gets the team fired up and ready to for conference and NCAA’s. Also, we are returning to a very competitive mid-season invitational at Texas A&M, which is also a very well-run meet at a great location. It’s going to be a fun, competitive, and exciting meet schedule this year. All of our student-athletes will benefit from this and I can’t wait to get started.”