2014 Women’s Pac-12 Championships Night 1: Cal, Stanford Split Relays

• Dates: Wednesday February 26th – Saturday March 1st; Prelims at 11AM, Finals 6PM
• Location: Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center (Pacific Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Stanford (Results.)
• Live Results: Available.
• Live Video (If available):
• Championship Central (sort of)
  

From our Conference Primer: The Pac-12 conference is absolutely loaded with female talent. There’s the star-studded California Golden Bears, likely the team to beat for the national title. There’s last year’s conference champs from Stanford, their own roster dotted with huge names and crazy talent. On top of that, there’s USC, who upset Cal in a big way in late January, Arizona and a rising young crew from UCLA. Though some of these teams might be focusing a little more forward, on the coming NCAA championships, conference rivalries still die hard, and for the most part, swimmers will be swimming hard to nab an invite to the national championships, making this an exciting conference showdown.

200 Medley Relay

The Cal Bears had the fastest back-half in the field, but Stanford got an NCAA-best 23.67 leadoff leg from Felicia Lee and an impressive 26.83 second leg from Katie Olsen to give the Cardinal a big lead they wouldn’t relinquish, touching in a near-Pac-12 meet record time of 1:35.74.  After falling behind in the breaststroke leg that has ailed them all year, the Bears jumped back into the race with a field-leading 22.68 from Cindy Tran.  Missy Franklin finished in a very quick 21.68 to give the Bears a final time of 1:36.06, but Stanford’s Maddy Schaefer, an elite sprinter in her own right, held off Franklin with a 21.70 of her own for the win.  USC, highlighted by Kasey Carlson’s 26.57 breaststroke split, was third in 1:36.54.

That final time from Stanford is the second fastest in the country so far this season, behind only the SEC champion Georgia Bulldogs.  Lee had the fastest swim on that relay for the Cardinal (23.67 makes her one of the five performers of all time by our count), but Olsen was the biggest difference-maker here.  The junior breaststroker has looked very good all year long, as she begins to really show the potential we saw back when she was a sub-minute high schooler.

Cal got three very good legs from Rachel Bootsma (who, although she was overshadowed by Lee here, split a very fast 23.76), Tran, and Franklin, but still doesn’t appear to have a sure-fire breaststroker.  Yvette Kong was a respectable 27.94 over the second leg, while Marina Garcia, a World Championship finalist, was only 28.0 on the B relay for the Bears.  Despite how good and how deep Cal is on the other three strokes (Farida Osman was also 22.68 on the fly leg for their B relay), the Bears will need big improvements from their breaststroke group to contend in three more weeks.

Notably, Margo Geer, reliable as ever, split 21.40 for the fourth-place Arizona Wildcats.

800 Free Relay

After Stanford topped Cal in the opening relay, the two teams switched places in the second and final swim event of the evening, with the Bears making a big statement with a 4+ second win, touching in 6:53.57, the second fastest time in the country this year.  Franklin gave the Bears a substantial advantage right off the bat with a 1:42.89 leadoff, and her three following teammates all putting down sub-1:44 splits.  Rachel Acker was 1:43.96 on the second leg, before handing off to individual All-American Caroline Piehl, who blew the race open with her 1:43.19 split.  Elizabeth Pelton anchored in 1:43.53.  That swim crushed the Pac-12 meet record by over three seconds, and sets up the Bears–based their performance tonight–for a great NCAA performance in this relay.

Stanford was a distant second in this event, but still posted a very respectable season-best 6:58.23, good for third in the country this season.  Sophomore Julia Anderson led off with a 1:44.76, her best time in more than two years, before Maya Dirado dropped a 1:43.28 to safely move the Cardinal into second.  Maddy Schaefer (1:45.84) and Lia Neal (1:44.35) finished off the relay.

USC remained in the top eight nationally with a 7:01.65 for third place, highlighted by a 1:44.65 leadoff from Chelsea Chenault and a 1:44.39 anchor from Jasmine Tosky.  Arizona held fourth place behind a great middle 400 from Margo Geer (1:43.71) and Bonnie Brandon (1:44.46).

Scores

Women – Team Rankings – Through Event 2

1. University of California, Berk 120 1. Stanford University 120
3. University of Southern Calif 108 4. Arizona, University of 104
5. University of CA – Los Angeles 100 6. Utah, University of 94
7. Washington State University 92 8. Oregon State University 86
9. Arizona State University 46