Over the course of the next two weeks, three Big West schools will be competing in a handful of events located up and down the Pacific shoreline. Cal Poly gears up for its first home event of the season November 30-December 1 when they host the Mustang Invite. The Mustang Invitational will get underway at 11:00 a.m. on Friday and at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. The Mustangs enter the meet with multiple school records already broken this season.
Also competing in a multi-day event are the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos, who travel to Federal Way, Wash., for the Husky Invitational November 29-December 2. The Husky Invitational will be the Gauchos first meet against ranked teams this season and the host, University of Washington, is boasting eight men and women collegeswimming.com Top 25 teams. For the men, No.4 Michigan, No. 11 Cal, No. 16 USC, No. 22 Notre Dame, and No. 24 Hawaii will all be present and accounted for. On the other side of the pool, No. 5 Cal, No. 13 Michigan, and No. 21 USC will be competing against the Gaucho women. Six other unranked teams will be in the pool beside the Gauchos, including Oregon State, Wyoming, Puget Sound, Seattle, Whitworth, Boise State, and of course, Washington. Preliminaries will be held Thursday-Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with the finals of the day's events being swum at 6:00 p.m. that night.
The following week, the Pacific women's squad hosts San Jose State in a dual meet. The two teams are scheduled to meet at the Chris Kjeldsen Pool Complex on Saturday, Dec. 8 at noon. The Tigers are 1-1 in dual meets this season.
Three Teams Ranked In Mid-Major Poll - In the most recent edition of the collegeswimming.com Mid-Major Poll, three Big West teams are ranked in the top 25. Leading the way on the men's side are the UC Irvine Anteaters, who moved up to fifth place, after starting the year with a preseason ranking of 13th. Cal Poly, entering the list for the first time, earned the 10th spot. On the women's side, UC Irvine is the lone squad to earn a top 25 ranking as they secure the second-place slot.