2022 Pac-12 Women’s Championships: Day 2 Finals Live Recap

2022 PAC 12 WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, February 23-Saturday, February 26, 2022
• Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way, Washington
• Defending champions: Cal (1x)
• Start Times: 10:30am prelims / 6:00 pm  finals (PT)
• Event Schedule
• 2021 Scoring Breakdown
• How to Watch
• Championship Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Thursday Finals Heat Sheets

The stage is set for another night of racing in Federal Way at the 2022 Pac-12 Women’s Championships. During prelims, it was Stanford senior Morgan Tankersley who earned lane 4 in the final with a 4:40.99, out-swimming the ASU duo of Erica Laning and Emma Nordin who will enter the final as 2nd and 3rd seeds.

In the 200 IM, however, USC’s Calypso Sheridan swam the fastest prelims time with a 1:55.64. She will need to watch out for Stanford freshman Torri Huske though who has already been as fast as a 1:52 this season and is on the hunt for her first-ever individual Pac-12 title.

The third individual event of the session will be the 50 freestyle, in which Stanford secure the #1 and #2 position courtesy of Taylor Ruck (22.10) and Anya Geoders (22.16) while Anicka Delgado of USC follows with her 22.19 morning swim. It could be anybody’s race though as all 8 women in the final swam within 0.20 seconds of each other this morning. The final event of the night will be the women’s 200 freestyle relay.

Thursday Finals Heat Sheets

Women’s 3-Meter

• NCAA Record: 437.75 – Christina Loukas, Indiana (2009)
• Pac-12 Record: 420.90 – Cassidy Krug, Stanford (2007)
• Pac-12 Championships Record: 387.75 – Blythe Hartley, USC (2006)

Top 3:

1. Lina Sculti (Stanford) – 370.75
2. Delaney Schnell (Arizona) – 369.30
3. Daria Lenz (Stanford) – 332.90

The women’s 3-meter dive came down to the wire as senior Lina Sculti and Delaney Schnell faced off in the final. Sculti of Stanford bounced back from a 9th-place finish in the 1-meter dive on night one to take gold here, scoring 370.75 points.

That was just over 1 point higher than runner-up Delaney Schnell who got a score of 369.30, while Sculti’s teammate Daria Lenz earned a bronze medal after scoring 332.90. This is the second medal for both Schnell and Lenz who won gold and silver in the 1-meter.

Notably, Sculti placed 9th in the 1-meter from the consolation final but got a score of 301.65, which would have gotten her bronze if she had qualified for the A final.

Stanford freshman Maria Papworth made it 3 from her school in the top 4 in the 3-meter event with her 4th place-garnering score of 324.70 and another Stanford freshman, Lauren Burch, placed 6th with 278.85 points. Stanford is picking up major points thus far in the diving events, while neither Cal nor Arizona state have secured any points from diving.

Women’s 500 Freestyle

• NCAA Record: 4:24.06 – Katie Ledecky, Stanford (2017)
• Pac-12 Record: 4:24.06 – Katie Ledecky, Stanford (2017)
• Pac-12 Championships Record: 4:25.15 – Katie Ledecky, Stanford (2017)
• NCAA A Cut: 4:35.76
• NCAA B Cut: 4:47.20

Top 3:

1. Erica Laning (ASU) – 4:38.80
2. Morgan Tankersley (Stanford) – 4:39.09
3. Ayla Spitz (Cal) – 4:40.89

ASU senior Erica Laning pulled off the victory in the women’s 500 freestyle by posting the fastest time by 0.19 seconds, out-touching top-seeded Morgan Tankersley. Laning’s swim of 4:38.80 places her in the #10 position nationwide this NCAA season behind Liberty Williams of Louisville who swam a 4:38.79 earlier this year.

This is just a bit slower than her own PB in the event of 4:37.90 from 2020 Pac-12s, which she swam during the prelims for the #2 seed before placing 7th overall with a 4:40.44.

Tankersly won silver here for the 3rd straight year, following a second-place finish for Stanford as a sophomore in 2020 and a junior in 2021. Tankersley’s 2022 performance is the slowest of the three silver medal-winning swims at Pac-12s, having swum a 4:35.99 two years ago and a 4:37.11.

Interestingly, this year also featured a repeat bronze medal winner in Ayla Spitz who posted a 4:40.89 for 3rd place. Last year she also took bronze for Cal in a 4:38.05, making it a slower podium this year than it was in 2021.

Mia Motekaitis and Fanni Fabian made it a 3-4-5 finish for Cal in this event with their times of 4:41.31 and 4:42.46, respectively, while Caroline Pennington followed in a 4:43.10 for USC. Aurora Roghair was 7th in a 4:43.72 for Stanford, which was just 0.10 seconds slower than her morning swim.

Emma Nordin had a notable 8th place finish for ASU, delivering a 4:44.63. That’s 3.47 seconds slower than the 4:41.16 Nordin swam in the morning and is 10 seconds slower than her 4:34.87 November swim, which is the #2 time in the nation this season.

Women’s 200 IM

• NCAA Record: 1:50.67 – Ella Eastin, Stanford (2018)
• Pac-12 Record: 1:50.67 – Ella Eastin, Stanford (2018)
• Pac-12 Championships Record: 1:52.26 – Katinka Hosszu, USC (2012)
• NCAA A Cut: 1:53.66
• NCAA B Cut: 1:59.94

Top 3:

1. Torri Huske (Stanford) – 1:52.42
2. Izzy Ivey (Cal) – 1:53.54
3. Brooke Forde (Stanford) – 1:54.23

Torri Huske picked up her first individual Pac-12 title as a Stanford freshman with a 1:52.42. Huske’s swim is a new PB, improving upon the 1:52.82 that she delivered in-season. Huske retains her 3rd rank overall in the NCAA this season behind Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh who swam a 1:52.21 and 1:52.38 at the Tennessee Invitational and ACC Championships, respectively.

Huske dropped 3.30 seconds from her morning swim to defeat the field and out-swam silver medalist Izzy Ivey by over a second. Ivey won silver here in a 1:53.54, slightly undercutting the 1:53.87 PB she posted to win the 2019 NCAA B-final.

Ivey was the fastest senior in the final, while Stanford senior Brooke Forde pulled off a podium finish in the 200 IM with a 1:54.23 for bronze. Forde notably decided to swim this event instead of the 500 freestyle, the event in which she won Pac-12 gold and NCAA bronze last year. Forde’s time was 1.57 seconds quicker than her morning swim and a bit quicker than her 2018 best time of 1:54.98.

Cal’s Leah Polonsky was just off the podium with a 1:55.10 for 4th place in the final, while top seed Calypso Sheridan placed 5th in a 1:55.27.

Women’s 50 Freestyle

• NCAA Record: 20.90 – Abbey Weitzeil, Cal (2019)
• Pac-12 Record: 20.90 – Abbey Weitzeil, Cal (2019)
• Pac-12 Championships Record: 21.03 – Abbey Weitzeil, Cal (2020)
• NCAA A Cut: 21.66
• NCAA B Cut: 22.76

One year after they tied for 5th place a the 2021 Pac-12 Championships, Anicka Delgado and Anya Goeders tied each other for the gold medal in the women’s 50 freestyle at the 2022 edition of the meet.

That’s right, for a second straight year, Delgado and Goeders posted the exact same time in the 50 freestyle final. Last year it was a 22.28 for 5th and this year they dropped under 22 seconds with a 21.89 to share a spot atop the podium.

Both of them were faster than what they swam in the prelims when Delgado put up a 22.19 and Goeders a 22.16. Delgado jumped up from 4th seed in the event as 3rd seed heading into the final, while Goeders went from 12th seed at the beginning of the meet, to 2nd seed out of prelims, to gold medalist.

While they won gold, the time from Delgado and Goeders is just outside of the top 10 in the NCAA this season. Amy Fulmer of Ohio State and Kylee Alons currently hold the #10 position at a 21.71.

The fastest swimmer in heats was Taylor Ruck with a 22.10, but she wasn’t fast enough here to keep that top spot. Ruck was 0.06 faster than her prelim swim and won bronze in a 22.04, trailing the 21.70 PB she but up on the 200 freestyle relay lead-off at 2019 NCAAs.

Last year’s Pac-12 silver medalist Claire Grover was 4th in a 22.10 for UCLA, while USC sophomore Hanna Henderson got in with a 22.22 for the silver medal.

Women’s 200 Freestyle Relay

• NCAA Record: 1:24.47 – Virginia (2022)
• Pac-12 Record: 1:24.55 – Cal (2019)
• Pac-12 Championships Record: 1:25.87 – Cal (2018)
• NCAA A Cut: 1:28.43
• NCAA B Cut: 1:29.21

Top 3:

1. Stanford – 1:26.52
2. Cal – 1:27.84
3. USC – 1:28.02

In the same session that she won the 200 IM individually, Torri Huske returned to swim on Stanford’s 200 freestyle relay, throwing down a 21.43 lead-off. That time was the fastest in the field and would have won her gold in the individual 50 freestyle earlier in the session.

Huske got a solid lead for Stanford and Taylor Ruck followed with a 21.43 as the second swimmer, while Amy Tang also dipped under 22 on her split with a 21.97. Moments after winning gold in the 50 freestyle individually, Stanford’s Anya Goeders anchored in a 21.69 to give Stanford a winning time of 1:26.56.

That was enough to beat Cal by more than a second and was 1.5 seconds quicker than USC’s bronze medal-winning 1:28.02.

Stanford is now the 4th-fastest 200 freestyle relay team in the NCAA this season, trailing Virginia’s NCAA record time of 1:24.47 from ACCs. Alabama and NC State have also been faster this season in a 1:26.38 and a 1:28.51, respectively.

Team Scores After Day 1

1. Stanford – 648.50 points
2. USC – 549.50 points
3. Cal – 486.50 points
4. UCLA – 354 points
5. University of Arizona – 342.50 points
6. University of Utah – 250 points
7. ASU – 236 points
8. Washington State – 158 points