This weekend, No. 5 women’s swimming (4-0, 3-0 Pac-12) will travel to Southern California for a Friday dual meet at UCLA (7-0, 4-0 Pac-12) and a Sunday dual meet at No. 24 USC (4-1, 4-0 Pac-12). The Cardinal women have not lost a dual meet since 2015, so they are heavily favored to emerge victorious again this weekend.

“Everyone’s in a good place to have some strong performances this weekend,” said senior Erin Voss. 

The team is still in the middle of a difficult stretch of training, but has been starting to think about their upcoming meets.

“Coming off last weekend, we’ve been getting feedback from coaches and working on that in practice and trying to do better,” Voss said.

In last weekend’s Arizona dual meets, the team had strong performances all around. Look to seniors Voss and Katie Drabot, along with sophomore Allie Raab and freshman Alex Crisera, to come up big for the Cardinal again this weekend.

This season, there are only three freshmen — in past few years, there have been seven. 

“It’s really cool to see how close they’ve gotten to each other,” Voss said of the first-years. “They’ve been a really great addition to our team.”

All three freshmen have shown themselves to be assets to the Cardinal. Crisera has been regularly winning backstroke and sprint freestyle events, and Kira Crage and Emma Wheal have been scoring points for Stanford in freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, as well as contributing on relays.

This weekend’s meets will be followed by a dual meet against Cal on Feb. 15, marking the end of the regular season. 

“Our winters are really nice because they build,” Voss said. “We take each competition at a time, taking that feedback and working it into practices.”

After the Cal meet next month, the Cardinal will compete at the Pac-12 Championships, followed by NCAA Championships.

Friday’s UCLA meet kicks off at 2 p.m. PST, and the USC meet starts Saturday at noon.

Contact Natalie Hilderbrand at nhild ‘at’ stanford.edu.