Early in the season, sophomore Hailey Casper was at the top of almost every single diving event, while freshman Sydney Czaus was progressively learning the ropes.
Starting at Stanford on Friday and at Cal on Saturday, the ASU diving team will have to compete without both Casper and Czaus for the rest of the season.
Czaus is out with a lower back stress fracture in her lower back, and Casper has a scheduled shoulder surgery.
“It’s unfortunate for Sydney and Hailey because it is an abrupt ending to their season, and they have personal goals,” dive coach Mark Bradshaw said. “We’re going to miss their presence because they were going to be good, quality points for the dual meets and in the Pac-12 (championships).
“That’s all kind of a bummer, but I hope these injuries can take care of themselves and we get them back going again next year.”
Senior Elina Eggers remains the lone female diver on the team. Despite the loss of Czaus and Casper, Bradshaw said the team’s focus for the season remains the same. Bradshaw welcomes this weekend’s meets as a challenge for the rest of his divers.
“Stanford has a lot of really good divers, men and women,” Bradshaw said. “They have arguably the best freshman male diver (Kristian Ipsen) in the country, so it will be a great challenge for us to go there. From an overall standpoint, after Kristian, they’ve got three or four guys that are quite solid.”
The Golden Bears are not as talented as the Cardinal, but ASU will still have to battle the elements.
“Cal is probably not as deep in their level of divers,” Bradshaw said. “Again, it’s at their pool — wet and rainy. I just want to see how we respond under those circumstances.”
The competition doesn’t get any easier for the ASU swimmers either.
The Sun Devils (No. 23 women) face a Cardinal program (No. 6 women, No. 3 men), in Palo Alto, Calif. that features depth in most of their events.
Cal (No. 2 women, No. 6 men) boasts some of the fastest swimmers in each event in the country, including junior Thomas Shields, who currently owns the fastest time in the 100-meter fly in the nation this season at 45.67.
Swim coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker plans to race her athletes in all of their fastest events this weekend. She said her teams are taking the same approach they had in their home meet against UCLA Nov. 11.
“It’s a great opportunity for us,” Tierney-Walker said. “Back to the UCLA meet, (the women) swam great there, but also they were very motivated to beat a team they hadn’t beaten in ten years. Now, we have to have that same approach against these top-five teams.”
Reach the reporter at jnacion@asu.edu
