Stanford Puts Five Through to A-Final in 200 IM on Day 2 of 2014 Pac 12 Championships

Pac-12 Men

• Dates: Wednesday, March 5th – Saturday, March 8th; Prelims 11AM/Finals 6PM (Diving February 26th-March 1st with women’s Pac-12s)
• Location: Federal Way, WA  (Pacific Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: California (results)
• Live Results: Available
• Championship Central

Day two of the 2014 Pac-12 Championships will see preliminary races in the 500 free, the 200 IM, and the 50 free, with finals tonight in the 200 free relay tagged on for good measure.

The 50 free should be the most exciting individual event of the day, especially now with things looking like it’s going to take under a 19.5 to qualify for NCAA’s. Our guess is that a few guys will scramble to shave mid-day to try and get those extra hundredths off after seeing what went down in the American Short Course Championships in Austin.

Thursday will also feature a 200 IM swim from the defending NCAA Champion in that event: Stanford’s David Nolan. Overall, Nolan was the star for the Cardinal on the first day of the meet, and if they want to maintain their lead (diving included), he’ll need to continue providing them a scoring, and emotional, lift.

For scores coming into day 2 of the meet, click here.

Men’s 500 Free – prelims

A USC Trojan is the defending champion in the men’s 500 free in the Pac-12, but it’s not the USC Trojan who took the top seed by a wide margin coming out of Thursday’s preliminaries.

USC freshman Reed Malone swam a lifetime best of 4:15.76 to put himself into lane 4 of the A-final, with Cal’s Jeremy Bagshaw (4:18.48) and Airzona’s Matt Barber (4:18.56) nto far behind.

The 4th seed is another Trojan, and the one who won this race last year, senior Cristian Quintero in 4:18.66. Quintero cruised through prelims last year before dropping six seconds in finals, so look for him to challenge Malone, if not blow right by him, in the evening.

A Trojan who won’t be in the A-final is USC’s Dimitri Colupaev. He did the same as last year,with a 4:23 in prelims to sit in the B-final, which is going to hurt USC in the team-scoring column. Last year, he was able to drop a few seconds and win that B-final, however. He still beat his seed time by exactly eight seconds.

Back to swimmers who did finish in the top 8, Cal’s Adam Hinshaw was 5th in 4:19.43, Cal Poly’s Sonny Fierro was 6th in 4:19.50, Utah’s Bence Kiraly was 7th in 4:19.88, and Stanford’s Bryan Offutt was 8th in 4:19.94.

The biggest slide came from Stanford’s Drew Cosgarea, seeded at a 4:19 but swimming just a 4:26 to be out of the points.

Up/Downs for this race:

Stanford – 1 up/3 down
Arizona – 1 up
USC – 2 up/2 down
Arizona St. – none
Utah – 1 up
Cal – 2 up/3 down
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – 1 up

Men’s 200 IM – prelims

As the Stanford men looked like they might be fading from title contention, their deep 200 IM group came through and put up some huge seedings out of prleims. Specifically, the Cardinal will have five swimmers in the A-final of that event tonight:

• #1 Max Williamson – 1:44.05
• #2 Gray Umbach – 1:44.15
• #4 David Nolan – 1:44.30
• #6 Tom Kremer – 1:44.72
• #8 Will Gunderson – 1:45.05

This is the culmination of many years of recruiting for Stanford where almost their signing classes have been littered with guys who are either great at multiple strokes, and come together into a strong 200 IM, or guys who are of uncertain specialty, other than being great IM’ers.

Joining them in the A-final is Cal’s Josh Prenot, the 3rd seed, in 1:44.23; Arizona’s Sam Rowan, the 5th seed, in 1:44.46; and Cal’s Will Hamilton, the 7th seed, in 1:45.00.

Stanford also put one more, Mason Shaw, into the B final. The top seed coming into the day was Arizona sophomore Michael Meyer, who slipped to 12th in prelims in 1:46.07.

Up/Downs this race:

Stanford – 5 up/1 down
Arizona – 1 up/3 down
USC – 1 down
Arizona St. – none
Utah – none
Cal – 2 up/3 down
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – none

Men’s 50 free – prelims

Brad Tandy continues to impress in his first NCAA meet, as he’s taken the top seed in the men’s 50 free witha  19.07. He’ll have a little distance out in front of the field, with Utah’s Nick Soedel sitting 2nd in 19.36, and Cal’s Seth Stubblefield tying with UCSB’s Wade Allen in 19.45 for 3rd.

The one guy who might have the chops to challenge him is Cal’s Tyler Messerschmidt, who is the 5th seed after prelims in 19.49 but was the top seed coming into the meet.

USC’s Jack Wagner and Dylan Carter tied for 6th in matching 19.59’s, and Cal’s Tony Cox (who had a great time trials swim on Wednesday evening) is 8th in 19.62.

Arizona’s Giles Smith looked very good on the Wildcats’ medley relay on Wednesday, splitting a 20.0. Unfortunately, he swam about the same time on a flat-start in his 50 free (20.05) despite getting a great reaction off the blocks, and that left him 19th overall. That left Tandy as the Wildcats’ only A-finalist.

Stanford had no A-finalists, with their highest finisher being freshman Connor Black who placed 11th in 19.84

Up/Downs in this race:

Stanford – 1 down
Arizona – 1 up/2 down
USC – 2 up/1 down
Arizona St. – 1 down
Utah – 1 up/1 down
Cal – 3 up/2 down
UCSB – 1 up
Cal Poly – none