2024 Women’s Pac-12 Championships: Cal Poised to Extend Early Lead (Day 2 Ups/Mids/Downs)

2024 WOMEN’S PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Dates: Wednesday, February 28 – Saturday, March 2
• Location: Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way, WA
• Defending champions: Stanford (2x)
• Live results
• Championship central
• Preview: Fan guide
• Day 1 Finals Live Recap
• Day 2 Prelims Live Recap

If you’re unfamiliar with our up/downs, here’s a quick explanation:

• “Up” = number of ‘A’ finalists for each team
• “Mid” = number of ‘B’ finalists for each team
• “Down” = number of ‘C’ finalists for each team

They’re presented in the format “up/mid/down”, which, for example, if a team had 2 ‘A’ finalists, 1 ‘B’ finalist, and 3 ‘C’ finalists in an event would be represented as “2/1/3.”

Now, before we get into the data from this morning’s prelims session — courtesy of Andrew Mering — let’s quickly remind ourselves of the team scores heading into tonight’s finals session.

TEAM SCORES AFTER DAY 1

1. Cal – 120
2. Arizona State – 106
3. Arizona – 104
4. UCLA – 102
5. Washington State – 96
6. Utah – 92
7. Stanford – 64
8. USC – 56

The last-ever Pac-12 Championships got off to a wild start on Wednesday night as the top two teams in the conference — two-time defending champion Stanford and USC — both suffered disqualifications that left them at the bottom of the standings after the first session of the meet.

Meanwhile, Cal broke its own six-year-old meet record in the 200 medley relay and earned a runner-up finish behind Stanford in the 800 freestyle relay to build a 14-point lead over Arizona State heading into Thursday’s finals.

Cal is in great position to build on its early advantage tonight with seven swimmers in A-finals, two more than Stanford and Arizona State. There were high hopes that the Trojans might capture their first conference crown since 2016, but they are off to a slow start with four swimmers in A-finals — just one more than UCLA.

Day 2 Ups/Mids/Downs

Stanford is expected to outscore Cal in the first two events, but the Bears are slated to dominate the 50 free toward the end of the session.

Scored Day 2 Prelims By Event

After an encouraging first night of relays from Arizona (104 points for 3rd place overall), the Wildcats are projected to score just 15.5 points tonight and fall to last place right behind Utah and Washington State.

Keep in mind: All this table represents is what the scoring would look like if the placement from this morning stayed exactly where it was tonight during finals. That won’t happen, but it’s still a good exercise for projecting tonight’s scores.

Scored Day 2 Prelims Total

Finally, let’s take a look at this morning’s scored prelims added into the actual scores from last night, which will give us an idea of what the scores will look like after tonight based on where things stand now. Keep in mind, there is also 1-meter diving and the 200 free relay tonight, which are not being accounted for in these projections.

Although USC owns the top seed in the 200 free relay, Cal should be the favorite tonight based on this morning’s results in the 50 free prelims, where the Bears boasted four of the top nine swimmers in the field.

Scored Prelims + Day 1 Actual

1. Cal – 410.5
2. Stanford – 296.5
3. Arizona State – 293
4. USC – 258
5. UCLA – 201.5
6. Utah – 126
7. Washington State – 121
8. Arizona – 119.5

It’s still early, but Cal is off to a hot start in pursuit of its first Pac-12 title since 2021.