A day after taking on California in Berkeley, the Arizona State Sun Devils headed to Palo Alto to take on the Stanford Cardinal. Stanford, for its part, was coming off its own Friday night dual with Arizona.
The results were a convincing Stanford win on both sides. The women dropped only two events, both of them to ASU’s Tristin Baxter, and the men lost only one race because of a DQ’d relay.
The meet order was a unique one. Instead of a ‘sprint’ meet, this was the opposite. Only 200s of each stroke were contested, along with all of the freestyle events and a 200 IM
The Stanford men won 12 of 13 events, getting a pair of wins from three athletes. Thomas Stephens won the 200 free in 1:37.69 and the 100 free in 44.85, two dominant wins compared to the field. Freshman Max Williamson went 1:48.27 to dominate the 200 IM, and later returned to win the 200 breast in 2:01.39, beating ASU’s Thibaut Capitaine.
Diver Bradley Christensen took home a pair of wins over ASU stud Riley McCormick. Christensen scored 372.00 on 1-meter and 405.38 on 3-meter to win as his teammate Kristian Ipsen took the night off.
Stanford would have swept the men’s events, but DQ’d their top 200 medley relay to open the meet, allowing ASU’s team of Richard Bohus, Thibaut Capitaine, Alex Coci and Tadas Duskinas to win in 1:30.25.
Stanford did win the 400 free relay, though, with the team of Tom Kremer, David Nolan, Connor Black and Thomas Stephens going 2:58.82.
Kremer, Nolan and Black each won one individual event in addition to the relay. Kremer went 4:28.42 to beat teammate Danny Thomson in the 500 free. Nolan won the 200 back in 1:46.85 and Black went 20.68 to win the 50.
Other winners for Stanford were Thomson in the 1000 and Gray Umbach in the 200 fly.
The Stanford women also swept the diving events with Stephanie Phipps winning her second and third events of the weekend. She scored 307.28 on 1-meter to barely beat out ASU’s Hailey Casper, and topped that with a convincing 349.80 win on 3-meter.
The other double winner for Stanford was Felicia Lee, who went 2:01.11 to run away with the 200 IM and 50.02 in the 100 free just a couple events later.
Stanford also won both relays. The 200 medley team of Lee, Katie Olsen, Nicole Stafford and Maddy Schaefer were 1:39.77, winning easily. Schaefer took one event off, then came back to win the 200 free in 1:48.95, and Olsen continued her very strong weekend by winnning the 50 free with a 23.51 in Schaefer’s absence.
Schaefer and Olsen combined with Mackenzie Stein and Bridget Boushka to win the 400 free relay in 3:28.17.
Despite the lopsided meet, Arizona State had to be pleased with the performances from distance specialist Tristin Baxter. The senior went 10:03.32 to beat out Stanford’s Tara Halsted in the 1000 free, and had to push her limits to run down Mackenzie Stein for a win in the 500 free, 4:51.21 to 4:51.52.
Halsted did win the 200 fly for Stanford. Freshman Grace Carlson won the 200 back and senior Maya DiRado won the 200 breast. That event had the dubious distinction of technically producing no points for either team, as DiRado and her fellow Cardinal swimmers were exhibitioned and Arizona State’s two entrants both disqualified.
The final scores were 148-68 for the women and 135-101 for the men.
A 200 distance based meet? Only Stanford would think of something like that. Historically they don’t promote sprinting. An Achilles heel in my book.
They’re so historically weak in sprinting that they hold the American record in the 4×50 relay.
They’ve also had a 100 back champion (Godsoe), 100 breast champion (Kornfeld), and 100 fly champion (Staab) all within the last few years. And the pre-super-suit American record holder in the 50.
Anyone know why Neal didn’t swim the meet?