IU men’s swimming and diving will close out its regular season with a top-10 matchup against the University of Louisville on Friday at the Ralph Wright Natatorium in Louisville, Kentucky.
Both schools are coming off of big wins over their in-state rivals on Saturday. IU took down Purdue on its senior day 179-112. Louisville took down the University of Kentucky, a team that IU also defeated this season, by a final of 165-135.
IU will look to spoil Louisville’s own senior day, as the Hoosiers haven’t lost against the Cardinals since a dual meet in Columbus, Ohio, on January 31, 2015.
“That’s a whole monster within itself,” Louisville head coach Albiero said. “It’s going to be a nice challenge.”
After its meet with Kentucky, Albiero said the team needs to keep its emotions in check to take down IU.
“It’s an emotional day,” Albiero said. “But we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Just put that away and let our swimming do the talking and compete.”
Two of the top swimmers for the Cardinals are juniors Daniel Sos and Evgenii Somov. Sos currently has the 18th best time in the country in the 200-meter individual medley at 1:44.86 and the 11th best time in the 400-meter individual medley with a 3:45.17.
In the 400 IM, Sos finished behind both senior Mohamed Samy and junior Mikey Calvillo the last time IU and Louisville met Nov. 9. However, the Hungarian was over seven seconds slower against IU than his top time this season, coming in at 3:52.81. Calvillo’s best time of the season is over a second slower than Sos’, at 3:46.38.
Somov, who finished seventh at the 2019 NCAA Championships in the 100 breaststroke, currently holds the 11th best time in the country in the same event this year at 52.34 seconds. Against IU, Somov picked up the victory in the 100 breaststroke and finished second in the 200 breaststroke, half of a second behind junior Matt Jerden.
“Louisville’s very good,” said IU head coach Ray Looze. “I will do everything in my power to have the team ready, like at DEFCON 1 in level of preparedness.”
He compared the environment at Louisville to Michigan, where the men lost their first dual meet in almost four years 160-140 on January 11.
“It’s very tough in sports to beat somebody twice in a season,” Looze said. “Whatever Michigan was, it’s going to be the same down there. And they would like nothing more than to beat you.”
