The No. 5/12 NC State swimming and diving team will head to Columbus, Ohio, this weekend to participate in the Ohio State Invitational, a three-day meet featuring 12 schools at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
The men’s competition at Ohio State will comprise nine schools; the host Buckeyes, the Wolfpack, Kenyon, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Yale, Penn State and Kentucky. The women’s meet will include these nine schools, as well as Florida Gulf Coast, Marshall and Washington State.
Eighteen swimming events and three diving disciplines will be held during the event, with an NCAA Championships format of preliminary heats and finals being followed in all diving and individual swimming events.
No school in the field is ranked higher than either of the NC State squads, with Ohio State (No. 16/23) and Notre Dame (No. 13/18) being the only other ranked competition.
The No. 5 Wolfpack men have dominated competition this season, winning all three of their meets by huge margins, including a 176-116 drubbing of defending national champion No. 9 Texas last week.
The No. 12 NC State women started the year strong, with big wins over Duke, Penn State and No. 18 Wisconsin, but have lost their last three meets, albeit against some of the nation’s best teams in No. 1 Stanford, No. 6 California and No. 2 Texas.
This weekend’s invite should be a good opportunity for the Pack women to get back to their winning ways, and the Pack men to continue their domination, as NC State enters with the fastest recorded time this season in 11 of the 18 swimming events for the men and seven of the 11 for the women.
Included in these 18 events are the 1,650-yard freestyle and 800-yard freestyle relay, which NC State has not recorded times in this year. However, with seniors Hannah Moore and Olympian Anton Ipsen being elite at long-distance freestyle races and the Pack always having strong showings in relays, these are two more events that NC State is likely the strongest in the field in.
Ipsen will play a huge role for the Wolfpack this weekend, likely swimming in the 1,650 free, 500-yard freestyle and 400-yard individual medley. Moore will be busy and key for NC State as well, as she should swim the 500 free and 200-yard butterfly along with the 1,650 free.
While Ipsen and Moore will hold down the long-distance freestyle events for the Wolfpack, it will be senior Olympian Ryan Held and sophomore Ky-Lee Perry that bolster NC State on freestyle sprints. Held has the third-fastest time in the nation this year in the 50-yard freestyle and the fourth-fastest time in the 100-yard freestyle. Perry’s best 50 free of the year is the ninth-quickest in the country, and a full half second faster than anyone else in the field.
In addition to Held and Perry, junior Justin Ress also excels in the 100 free, with the fifth-fastest time in the NCAA this year in the event. Ress also leads a Wolfpack contingent of men who excel in backstroke, as he has a top-15 time in the country in the 100-yard backstroke.
Along with Ress, sophomore Coleman Stewart and senior Hennessey Stuart are also far in front of the rest of the field in the two backstroke heats, with both having top-20 national times in each event this year.
Butterfly is another area of strength for NC State, particularly on the men’s side. Junior Andreas Vazaios and junior James Bretscher both have top-10 times in the NCAA in the 200 fly.
The one big weakness for the Pack comes in the breaststroke, where Penn State’s Kaelen Freund, who swept the breastroke events during a tri-meet between the Nittany Lions, Duke and NC State back in October, is the strongest male in this weekend’s field. On the women’s side, Kentucky’s Bailey Bonnett is among the best in the nation and should lead the field.
In diving, State will rely on sophomore James Brady on the men’s side and sophomore Madeline Kline for the women. While Kline and Brady have put together good seasons so far, it will be a tough test for the Pack this weekend against tough competition, led by Ohio State’s strong diving team. One positive for the Wolfpack will be that this is the first time this season it will have platform diving in a competition, an event Brady qualified for NCAAs in last year.
