Video Produced by Coleman Hodges.
Reported by Jared Anderson.
As a whole, the Pac-12 won 9 of 13 finals heats swum tonight (not counting the timed-final 800 free relay or 3-meter diving). That included sweeps of the A and B final wins in the 200 medley relay, 200 free, 100 breast and 100 back.
If you didn’t hear about Missy Franklin‘s swims tonight, you might have been living under a rock. The superstar was trending nationally on Twitter after becoming the first woman ever to break 1:40 in the 200 free – Franklin went 1:39.10.
That 200 free was the most Pac-12-dominated event we’ve seen in a long time. Pac-12 teams accounted for 6 of the 8 A finalists and 9 of the 16 total point-scorers. That included the top 4 finishers, Franklin, Simone Manuel, Lia Neal and Cierra Runge.
Stanford made a critical prelims error in the 200 medley relay, swimming an off lineup and missing the A final. From the consol heat, the team went a time that would have won the event overall, 1:35.10. For those keeping track at home, that’s a loss of 22 points for Stanford based purely on one off prelims swim.
On the bright side for the Cardinal, though, the team was literally unbeatable in the breaststrokes tonight. Sarah Haase won the national title in the 100 breast, and her teammate Katie Olsen won the B final. Haase also had the second-best 50 breast split of the field on the 200 medley relay.
Lost in the shuffle of Kelsi Worrell‘s American record 100 fly was a very good swim from USC’s Kendyl Stewart. The junior went 50.92, her first time under 51 seconds, and took third.
Cal also managed to win the 800 free relay and came remarkably close to its own American record in the event, despite all four women coming off of multiple swims earlier in the session.
