Pac-12 Women
- Dates: Wednesday, February 26th – Saturday, March 1st; Prelims 11AM/Finals 6PM
- Location: Federal Way, WA (Central Time Zone)
- Defending Champion: Stanford (results)
- Live Results: Available.
- Live Video (If available):
- Championship Central
The final day of the 2014 Pac 12 Championships begin with a lead from the resilient Cal women, who overcame a DQ early at this meet to sit 53.5 points up on Stanford at the completion of Friday’s swims. With a lot of depth in a lot of races on Saturday, this is Cal’s title to lose, but don’t miss the intrigue of the day’s races either.
In the 200 back, a Missy-Franklin-less 200 back, Liz Pelton and Bonnie Brandon will battle. Missy will save her last individual swim for the 100 free final, where she’s going to have to outdo the defending NCAA Champion Margo Geer of Arizona, who was very near a lifetime best in prelims, and USC’s Kasey Carlson.
Following those races will be the 200 breast, the 200 fly, platform diving, and the 400 free relay, with the session getting underway in the 1650 free.
To see day 4’s prelims results click here.
To see where team scores sit after three days, see our day 3 recap here.
1650 Freestyle
A fresh face was crowded the champion tonight as Samantha Harrison of Oregon State won the 1650 freestyle tonight. This entire meet has been dominated by Stanford, Cal and USC for individual event wins. Harrison had a big drop, finishing under 16:00 to snag an A standard with a final time of 15:55.57.
Harrison crushed her own team record for OSU, as it was from last year with a time of 16:17.78.
Arizona’s freshman Tjasa Oder also had a fantastic swim. She came into the event with a NT, meaning she swam in the earlier heats in the afternoon. She finished second overall, sneaking under the 16:00 barrier at 15:59.88.
UCLA’s distance swimmers had a good showing as well. Katy Campbell and Lauren Baker were in the top eight, finishing third and fifth, with times of 16:05.95 and 16:14.67. Campbell is just off Baker’s team record from last season of 16:04.18.
Between the two was Sami Zuch, a senior from Utah. She finished at sixth in a time of 16:22.02. Her entry time of 16:19.30 should be on the bubble of making it in next month.
Stanford’s Allison Brown, 16:31.87, and Cal’s Catherine Breed, 16:33.14, rounded out the top eight finishers in the event.
200 Backstroke
The defending PAC-12 and NCAA Champion had a bit of a race initially in her event tonight, but Liz Pelton used a strong back half to win in 1:52.18. Pelton is the NCAA & American Record holder in the event with a time of 1:47.84. Pelton went 1:48.39 last year at the PAC-12 Championships.
Challenging Pelton was Arizona’s Bonnie Brandon. Brandon had a slight lead at the 100 mark, turning at 54.96 to Pelton’s 55.23. Brandon just fell short to Pelton when she finished in 1:52.50 for second.
The Cal Bears also went third through sixth with Melanie Klaren leading the bunch. Klaren was third at 1:53.85, and Sophia Batchelor was sixth, with times of 1:53.85 and 1:54.91. Hoi Shun Au and Kelly Naze finished between them.
UCLA’s Madison White was seventh and Stanford’s lone A finalist was Annemarie Thayer for eighth.
Kendyl Stewart, USC, won the B final in 1:54.93. That was over a two second drop from her time this morning.
100 Freestyle
It was quite a battle for the top three in this event tonight. You have Missy Franklin and Lia Neal, Olympic medalists in this event from relays, and then the 2013 NCAA Champion, Margo Geer, also in the mix.
Franklin got her hand on the wall first, winning in 47.17. Her time was just .02 better than the previous PAC-12 Meet Record from Dana Vollmer.
Franklin and Geer were both under :23 at the turn, but Lia Neal used her 200 freestyle back end speed to out split Geer for second place. Neal’s final time was 47.53.
Geer was third in 47.63. Arizona has been through a lot this season, and there is still plenty of time between now and NCAAs for Geer to have a great senior season.
Kasey Carlson, USC, also was under :48 for fourth, 47.92, just ahead of Stanford’s Maddy Schaefer 48.17.
Cal also had Rachael Acker and Kaylin Bing in for sixth and seventh. Utah, continuing to have a great meet, had Traycie Swartz finish eighth.
200 Breaststroke
After winning the 100 breaststroke yesterday, Katie Olsen of Stanford doubled up in the event wins, taking the longer discipline tonight. She won in 2:08.39, big drop from her seed time and preliminary time. Olsen has had a very solid season; look for her next month in March with more rest under her belt.
It was a battle of the Stina’s for second and third place. USC’s Stina Gardell had a bit of a lead after the first 100, splitting 1:01.5. But Stina Colleou ran her down, especially with a 32.6 third 50 split, to beat her to the wall for second place honors.
Colleou’s final time was 2:09.07. Gardell finished at 2:09.26. Colleou’s second place finish was Utah first ever top 3 finish at the conference championships in program history. Utah really has a had a historic first season under new Head Coach Joe Dykstra
Arizona’s Emma Schoettmer was also under 2:10, finishing fourth in 2:09.91. Her teammate Sara Bordendame was sixth.
Cal’s best finisher was Marina Garcia in fifth. Andrea Kropp was seventh for USC, and Utah rounded out the top eight again with Nicole Ligeza.
200 Butterfly
Maya DiRado has had a very impressive final PAC-12 Championships. She finished out the meet with her third individual win of the weekend here in the 200 butterfly. She won the event in a time of 1:53.60.
DiRado used to swim the 200 backstroke on this day, but since the Worlds in 2013, DiRado has emerged into a fantastic 200 butterfly swimmer.
Noelle Tarazona had a great swim for the Bruins, finishing second in 1:54.80. Rachel Boostma of Cal had a strong back 100 to lock herself into the third spot at 1:55.37.
Ashley Evans for Arizona was fourth, just slightly off Boostma’s pace the whole race, at 1:55.93.
Stanford’s Mackenzie Stein, Jasmine Tosky and Chelsea Chenault of USC were all at 1:56’s for fifth through sixth place. Stein and Chenault improved on their seed times, but Tosky is a bit off her 1:53 for the Trojan’s mid season meet.
Sophia Batchelor was eighth for the Cal Golden Bears.
Platform Diving
USC’s Haley Ishimatsu claimed her second platform diving title in a row in the PAC-12, after winning her first last season. She set a new PAC-12 meet record with her score of 340.20, over the previous mark of 322.65. Ishimatsu looks poised to win a back-to-back NCAA crown in this event.
Cal’s Kahley Rowell was second and Utah’s Kersten Merry rounded out the top three for the event.
400 Freestyle Relay
In the final race of the night, Cal had the final touch over Arizona at the wall. The two teams used two different strategies as Cal kept their big gun for the anchor leg, while Arizona decided to use theirs at the second spot.
Kaylin Bing split 48.70 to have the beginning lead for the Bears over Bonnie Brandon. But Margo Geer’s 46.56 split gave the Wildcats over a second lead over Rachael Acker at the half way mark. After Caroline Piehl and Alana Pazevic both split 48.2’s, Arizona had a 1.3 second lead into the final 100 yards.
Gracie Finnegan split 48.1, but couldn’t hold off a 46.4 split from Franklin. Cal won in 3:11.49, as Arizona was second at 3:11.90.
Stanford was third at 3:12.55. Lia Neal anchored the Cardinal in 46.64, while the rest of her relay split 48’s. USC was fourth at 3:14.46, as Kasey Carlson split a 47.8 on the third leg.
Team Scores
It was Cal’s meet to lose, and the Bears came through with the 2014 PAC-12 title. The title returns back after a hiatus in 2013 to Stanford. They came away with an almost 200 point lead over Stanford, even with a relay win DQ.
USC made up some ground on Stanford, as the Cardinal finished about forty points ahead of the Trojans for second and third place. UCLA held on and bested Arizona for fourth place by only three points.
Utah in their first season with Coach Dykstra finished sixth.
1. University of California, Berk 1552.5
2. Stanford University 1364
3. University of Southern Calif 1327
4. University of CA – Los Angeles 936.5
5. Arizona, University of 933.5
6. Utah, University of 758
7. Arizona State University 461.5
8. Washington State University 346
9. Oregon State University 309
agree with your comments to “ucla jim”. spot on The lofty biased opinions by him should be ignored,. It appears most do,
just so hard to see such blatant misrepresentations.
This says it all to support your response to him.
http://swimswam.com/scoring-2014-womens-ncaa-psych-sheets-georgias-depth-shows/
Best of luck to all.
I think that a lot of the Cal nay-saying done after the dual meet losses was done by one person, “USA/UGA/swim fan,” (read: troll) posting under different names.
CLEARLY, that person is nowhere to be found now!
Where are you? Missy Franklin is so overrated and her yards prowess is non-existent. Please.
Amen to that…although I am sure he will post some rant before March 20th.
I’ll never understand the multiple handles angle, but I also can’t imagine what McKeever and.or Missy could ever have done to anyone to trigger that kind of venom. Teri’s pretty shy and doesn’t pop off at all. Georgia and Jack have also received a ton of well-deserved praise, so it’s not like they’re an overlooked program that’s doesn’t get any respect. Really bizarre all around.
I actually don’t think they have any affiliation with UGA at all, but rather they throw support since UGA is (always) the team best suited to keep Cal from winning. That way, it legitimizes their satisfaction if/when Cal loses. We’ll never know their real issues, and I’m fine with that.
Agreed – the so called UGA fan is an embarrassment best ignored.
Nonetheless, a careful look at this season’s results to date reveals that Cal has a significant gap to close on the actual UGA womens team at NCAAs. While Cal alleviated some of their concerns with some key performances at Pac 12s, I dont believe they did nearly enough to be considered anywhere close to favorites. For Cal to unseat UGA, Cal will need a whole fleet of huge season best (actually lifetime best) swims from their “second tier” in tandem with general subpar efforts from Georgia.
I agree GI, UGA is stacked, it will be tough for Cal, but definitely wouldn’t put it past them to pull the upset, they are so deep it’s insane!! How do you feel about T A&M? They look pretty good on paper too.
eh- disagree. UGA is still suffering from a lack of a clear super star since Romano and Schmitt left. Margalis has been amazing this season, true. Smoliga & Vreeland will be top-3/top-5 in their events….but they’re not as bankable as Franklin & Pelton.
also – you can’t compare SEC times to PAC-12 times. completely different meet given SEC has more time to re-train and re-taper and PAC-12 teams are even just semi-rested.
in fact – i wouldn’t bet against Stanford beating UGA. Unless Cal chokes…they win, it won’t take a bevy of “lifetime bests”…
You can believe whatever you like but you need to ignore facts to do so. Any individual star can only score you 60 points on their own at best and it will take somewhere in the vicinity of 400 team points to win this meet – doesn’t matter how many records Franklin or Pelton swims – a winning swim is still only worth 20. A winning relay is still only worth 6 points more than 2nd place. Let me put it another way: when you say Cal just doesn’t need to choke, how many points are you counting on from Acker, Piehl, Au, Osman,or Bing in that scenario? Because Cal doesnt get near 400 points without those guys making multiple… Read more »
It’s true, and I’m sure that SwimSwam will run an article on this soon enough. On paper, UGA is winning by roughly 150 points excluding diving. And I know nothing of diving, but it seemed like their divers did really well at SEC’s.
Right now, UGA is scoring points in 50 free, 100 & 200 breast, 1650 free, where Cal has zero. Cal is not able to blow away UGA in 100 and 200 back due to Smoliga and Zilinskas/Mattern.
UGA doesn’t have a Romano, but Smoliga + Locus = Romano and then there is Vreeland and van Landeghem!
For Cal to win, Franklin (1/2/5) and Pelton/Bootsma/Tran (2IM/1bk/2bk) will need to win their 6 events, and Cal will… Read more »
You nailed it perfectly. Not saying it can’t be done, but Cal has to be very close to perfect while UGA has a cushion and the numbers going in to get it done many different ways.
Props to USC… its hard to swim fast when it counts…. especially after being rested for half the season. I personally think the NCAA should just hand them the title based off of duel meet season. REALLY can’t wait to see how the college (not post grad) team does lcm.
Have you heard of Dr. Dave Salo?
Question. These are the schools listed. What does is the PC after Cal & STan? Why aren’t they listed as “CA”.
WSU-IE __
ORGU-OR
CAL-PC
STAN-PC
13 USC-CA
14 ARIZ-AZ
15 USC-CA _
16 UTAH-UT
17 UCLA-CA
18 ORGU-OR
OBear – it refers to their USA Swimming designated LSC, which in this case is the Pacific Coast LSC.
I know that the top swimmers / teams in the PAC 12 are focused on NCAA’s and the Pac 12 men’s meet will reveal more about the respective programs. But the women’s Utah program had an almost unbelievable meet.
It was exactly one year ago almost to the day that Utah lost its head coach –surrounded by potentially damaging circumstance that could have negatively impacted the program for years — as well as the swimmers currently at the University of Utah.
Credit coach Joe Dykstra, his coaching staff, and swimmers.
Joe Dykstra has come in an installed a new life and confidence as well as a host of all time best times to this program.
It… Read more »
I knew the boys were flying, but good to see the girls’ results here after the unfortunate situation unfolded there last year. Aware me, did Kenza Salem redshirt this year?
I’m not too sure but I’d assume they also get more time in between events by having both men and women swim.
They get a much bigger buffer between events when men and women are combined than they will at NCAAs thanks to three tiers of finals and both genders. Would make much more sense to mimic NCAAs as much as possible, three days of events (Th-Sat) and two tiers of finals.
SEC Championship Meet vs. Pac 12 results, atmosphere and energy level –
Well when comparing this year’s Pac 12 meet results/times vs. the SEC Championship meet, it’s night and day in terms of time improvement and time results.
Barring a couple of events, the SEC Championship meet dominated in terms of high production.
It will be interesting to see how the two conferences stack up against each other in terms of improvement from their seeded times in 3 weeks. Will the SEC teams be able to match and improve on their championship times…do they have anything left in the tank?
In some ways, I wouldn’t be surprised if the SEC results are still faster than the NCAA meet… Read more »
Sorry Longseeker, I meant to reply to this thread.
I agree that the SEC generally had better times and more depth. Look at the 100 breast: a total of 10 women under a minute between prelims and finals, with only 2 at Pac-12s.
USSWIMFAN, it’s easy to see why SEC’s has a better environment, and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with having both men and women there…
(1) Men’s SEC’s has 10 teams, 7 or 8 of which had swimmers really competing for titles in different events. Pac 12’s has 8 teams, with four “contenders” (Zona, Stanford, Cal, USC), two teams who bring some quality swimmers (UCSB and Utah), and two who don’t bring much to the table (Cal Poly, ASU). The Pac 12 women is largely the same situation.
(2) THE biggest reason… SEC’s was in Athens, Georgia. Not only a great college town, but also within reasonable driving distance of a majority of the schools in the conference. Pac 12’s… Read more »
Thx for the explanation. I never thought about that. I just assumed that since the SEC seems to take collegiate sports much more serious than a lot of the California schools, they automatically had a culture and atmosphere that increases conference championships. Living in So. California was frustrating when I see the ‘away’ teams have equal or sometimes more fans at games than the home team…I don’t know if it’s just a California thing ’cause we tend to be pretty mellow and have other priorities or not.
I hope that Cal, USC, and Stanford can give GA and the other SEC schools a good run at NCAA’s…but I will still wonder if the SEC Championship times are replicated in… Read more »
Yes, a some people and aquatic news gurus apparently had my Cal Bears written off after the double dual meet losses to Stanford and USC. And I must admit I was concerned,too. But Terri and the girls know what they are doing and have great competition intent in them.
So despite dual losses, the DQ in a relay with a lot of loss points, and the hits on Vredeveld and Garcia for not bringing their times down. But team mates made up for them and Garcia is coming around even if it does not show until next year. People looked at Vredeveld’s 22.2 in HS and expected more as she was around the high 23’s. Well she has moved down… Read more »
I agree that the SEC generally had better times and more depth. Look at the 100 breast: a total of 10 women under a minute between prelims and finals, with only 2 at Pac-12s.
Breakthrough? Actually no. The Bruins scored more points in 2011 and took a 4th place finish in 2010. with even more points. Bringing back the men’s program would be fantastic. In fact for the other UC schools as well UC Irvine doesn’t even have a swim program anymore! Not likely to return soon though. This year was more about AZ which scored less with too much to overcome this year with their coaching situation. AZ State was very disappointing too. What about the WA swim program? CAL, Stanford and my USC vs SEC will make for a fun NCAA championships.
Hey Tommy-The Bruins had a few things to overcome this year as well. First night we lost one of our top sprinters to a fractured elbow on her finish in the relay. The 2nd day in prelims we lost another point scorer in the 200 free when she pulled up at the 100 after having an asthma attack. We then lost a senior who came down with the flu and couldn’t swim until the last day. The spread would have been much bigger on Arizona if these things didn’t occur. We had 2 freshman make the final 8 3x. The Bruins had another freshman point scorer who had mono which effected her entire season.
The Bruins pulled together as… Read more »
That’s nice to know.
As a Pac 12 observer but not a UCLA insider, I am curious. What does the UCLA community believe is the objective performance standard of success for their program? Is a distant 4th at Pac 12s considered a very good year? Any expectations for NCAA’s? How is the performance of the women’s swimming program rationalized in relation to UCLA’s other women’s sports?
When I look at UCLA, I see massive unrealized potential. To me, there should be real anguish and soul searching that the Bruins will likely finish somewhere north of 25th at NCAAs this year and will probably be significantly outscored by the likes of San Diego State. As an outsider, its clear to me… Read more »
I think that the program would love to be ranked higher than even last years finish after NCAA’s. Kind of like USC’s and Cal’s feelings about their football and basketball programs (not even ranked). Being ranked in the top 20 is assumed and top 10 is expected at the best sports school in America….UCLA. The swim program needs to build on their last 3 strong recruiting classes. Will they beat Cal, Stanford and USC in swimming anytime soon….no unfortunately.
Glad you could see past the duals that so many love to blow out of proportion. Mid-season and conference are only so important to teams chasing rings. If anybody thinks otherwise then please let me know if you think the Cal girls, as a team, were as sharp as they could be this week, or at mid-season, or in duals? Haha. Or if it would have been beneficial to their performance in March to be any sharper in-season than they have been thus far? Lol. They are a go for March, not before.
I can understand the urge to hang on every second of every performance all year, as it’s hard to wait til NCAAs….but how so many here and… Read more »
With respect to UCLA, it’s a matter of perspective. This university has all of the strategic assets (school, facility, funds, local talent pool, setting) that should allow it to be a perpetual top 10 in the country program. Instead, they will once again threaten to break into the low double digits and a 25+ placing at NCAAs this year. As long as the UCLA community (athletic department, alumni, etc) is happy to celebrate a distant 4th place conference finish, they will continue to fall short of their immense potential.
With respect to Cal, my question is who specifically is going to make up the roughly 150 point “on paper” gap that Georgia enjoys right now. I know that McKeever is… Read more »
I would agree GI. UCLA is as attractive a school as any in the nation to go to. Great Geo, academics and the richest athletic tradition than any other school in the history of this nation. Every sport seems to be at least top 15. They now have had 3 top 10 recruiting classes in a row (including next years incoming class). So, we’ll see what the team has within the coming years. Fact is they compete in the nations top conference when you consider athletics and academics bar none. The top top recruits that are brilliant and lightning fast will go to Stanford. The Olympians and or future Olympians go to Cal and the top foreign Olympians go to… Read more »
With this last comment, I will drop the topic – but I’m confused by your reply. On the one hand, you seem to imply that recruiting against the other California schools is the big roadblock, but then you go on to say UCLA will now will have 3 consecutive top 10 recruiting classes (so is it a problem or not?)
I personally don’t believe that recruiting should ever be a problem. Even if UCLA is only #4 in the Pac 12, you still have a potentially better overall offering than all but maybe 5 other non Pac 12 schools in the country. Nothing against Tucson or College Station or Knoxville or Minneapolis or Bloomington — but how is it those… Read more »
The last 3 classes were ranked in the top 10. That includes next years incoming class. Last years freshman class was #10. One of those top swimmers left for Florida. This years Freshman class was #9 and so is next years incoming class. So we’ll see how it goes in the future. Lots of talent on this team but they are clearly overshadowed by others in the PAC-12. The Pac-12 has 3 of the top 5 swimming schools as well as #10. Toughest conference! Cindy goes outside of the local areas to recruit. UCLA graduates a stud from Massachusetts, Arizona and Singapore this year. Not making excuses as I would love to see the Bruins in the top 10 but… Read more »