Cal Men Push Further Forward with 13 A-Finalists on Day 3 at Pac 12’s

Men’s 400 IM Prelims

Cal freshman Josh Prenot put up a very good 3:45.57 in the 400 IM for the top overall seed in the morning. That’s far off of his season-best, but was still a sharp-looking prelims swim. Prenot is very good through all of the strokes, and that showed in this race. He even out-split Stanford’s Matt Thompson (2nd seed – 3:46.51) on the backstroke leg, where Thompson is very good.

Prenot’s challenge will be getting enough of a lead tonight, as the older Thompson has a much better closing kick.

Arizona freshman Michael Meyer is the 3rd seed in 3:47.54, making two freshmen in the top three qualifiers. Stanford’s Robbie Hommel is 4th in 3:47.56. Though the Cardinal have two of the top four finalists, but with brothers Ben Hinshaw and Adam Hinshaw also in the A-final for the Golden Bears, this is another advantage for Cal.

Men’s 100 Fly Prelims

Cal’s Tom Shields had no trouble with the front-half of his double, swimming a 45.25 for the top seed. Just behind him is Arizona’s Giles Smith in 46.02, forcing a rematch of the top two from last year’s NCAA Championship.

Cal’s Marcin Tarczynski (46.52) and Stanford’s Gray Umbach (46.62) will be the 3rd and 4th seeds. Umbach out-finished Maclin Davis from USC (6th – 46.62) in prelims; those are two of the fastest high school butterfliers in history.

Jack Lane, also from Stanford, was just behind Davis in 46.67, following up on his outstanding 200 medley relay split from Sunday.

Stanford’s Aaron Wayne chose this 100 fly for his day 2 event instead of the 200 free, and he will have his second B-Final swim tonight. His 46.86 left him just out-touched by Arizona State’s Alex Coci, a transfer from Alabama. Once again, this will be another outscore from Cal.

Men’s 200 Free Prelims

USC’s Dimitri Colupaev, recovering from his tough prelims swim on Monday, took the top seed in the 200 free prelims with a 1:34.97. He and teammate Cristian Quintero (1:35.08) are the top two seeds, and with the way both dropped in finals yesterday, it will be tough to catch them.

Stanford freshman Tom Kremer is 3rd in 1:35.45, and Cal freshman Trent Williams took 4th in 1:36.72. Williams is taking a very similar arc to what his teammate Will Hamilton did at last year’s Pac 12 meet; Hamilton had his big breakthrough at Pac 12’s to go from relative unknown to eventually an NCAA champion as a freshman. We don’t know yet if Williams will pull that off too, but he swims a similar event schedule and thus far is taking a similar path.

The aforementioned Hamilton was 5th in prelims in 1:35.71. This is a winnable event for Stanford, and a spot where they really need to step up and make their stand before Cal has a chance to pull away.

Men’s 100 Breast Prelims

Stanford has found some good breaststrokers for their medley relays, but none of them are primary breaststrokes. That means that the Cardinal are left with only a single scorer in this 100 breaststroke: junior Mason Shaw who sits 11th in 54.49.

Meanwhile, Cal has two: both of whom are in the A-Final. That includes Trevor Hoyt, who is the 3rd seed after this morning’s prelims in 53.26.

American and NCAA Record holder Kevin Cordes is the top seed in 51.43 and USC’s Vlad Morozov is 2nd in 52.58. That breaks the USC school record for Morozov in the event, the second time this year that he’s done so.

UCSB’s Tommy Freeman took advantage of the relative weakness of the top two teams, and a season-best time, to take the 4th seed in 53.39.

Men’s 100 Back Prelims

The 100 back live results show that Mitchell Friedemann is the 2nd seed, however the official results shown on the scoreboard had Friedemann DQ’ed. We have confirmed that Friedemann WAS NOT DQ’ed, and therefore will be the 2nd seed tonight.

David Nolan, who won three Pac 12 Championships last year, has himself lined up early to shoot for the same this season. He will take the top seed into tonight’s finals in 46.20, followed closely by Arizona’s Mitchell Friedemann, who led the country coming into championship season.

Still lurking, though, are Cal newcomer Tony Cox, a former All-American from Auburn; and Tom Shields, the defending NCAA Champion in the event. Both Nolan and Shields were under 46’s at last year’s meet.

In terms of team scoring, Cal has four in the A-Final. Stanford, as good and as deep as their backstroke group is, only got 1 up, as Will Gunderson and Matthew Swanston both slid to the B-Final.

Live results available here.

Up/Downs

“Ups” refer to the number of swimmers who have qualified for the A-Final, and “Downs” refer to the number of swimmers in the “B” final. “Ups” can finish no lower than 8th in finals, and “Downs” can finish no higher than 9th and no lower than 16th (excluding DQ’s, of course).

Pac 12 Men Ups Downs
Cal 13 5
Arizona 8 8
Stanford 7 10
USC 6 9
Utah 2 2
Arizona State 2 2
UCSB 2 2
Cal Poly 0 2

Who will win the Men's PAC 12 Championships this week?

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Tim Freeman
11 years ago

My name is TIMMY Freeman. K thanks

CraigH
11 years ago

I shouldn’t make this claim while looking at results on a computer screen 700 miles away, but it seems to me that Stanford just isn’t very fired up for this meet. You see this based on all of these 9th and 10th place prelim swims, as swimmers are adding a few tenths to their seed times.
I’m wondering of part of this can be attributed to the coaching change. Say what you will about his outdated coaching style, but Kenney was an expert at rallying swimmers around a team-oriented goal (Pac-12s), building camaraderie amongst his swimmers, and playing mind-games with his swimmers (obv, sometimes these backfired on him, but oftentimes they worked wonders). With the risk of not qualifying… Read more »

ole 99
Reply to  CraigH
11 years ago

Doing a quick review, it looks like Offutt and Cosgarea are the most “on the bubble” at this point. Thomson is 24th in the 1650 right now, so I assume he’s safe enough. Anyone else? Looked like most everyone else has one time that will get them to NCAAs.

CraigH
Reply to  ole 99
11 years ago

I actually haven’t run the numbers. I’m just going by what I’ve read on this and other sites. Do you have a good resource with updated college times lists, that includes the recent conference championship meets? Thanks.

ole 99
Reply to  CraigH
11 years ago

USA Swimming / NCAA Information / NCAA Division I / Top Times Report

Its updated through yesterday’s events.

ole 99
Reply to  ole 99
11 years ago

USA Swimming / Times / NCAA Information / NCAA Division I / Top Times Report

Forgot the “/Times” part in my original response.

Reply to  ole 99
11 years ago

Is there a limit of number of swimmers from the same college for individual events??

ole 99
Reply to  ole 99
11 years ago

Only entry limit is on relays, where the limit is one per school. Schools can qualify up to eighteen swimmers for the championships. Divers count a 1/2 a swimmer (so if you bring 4 divers, you only can bring 16 swimmers). Swimmers can participate in up to seven events, but only three of them can be individual events.

ArtVanDeLegh10
Reply to  ole 99
11 years ago

Cosgarea had a great 4 IM last night, so he should be in.

Thunderbolt
11 years ago

Seems like either some of Stanford’s swimmers have missed their taper, or the coaching staff designated the wrong swimmers as scoring versus exhibition. Yesterday, in the 500 free and today in the 200 free, exhibition swimmers Chris Picard and Jeff Garnier could have scored big points. A number of swimmers eligible to score in the PAC-12 meet, on the other hand, not only have been slower that these exhibition swimmers, but are in serious jeopardy of making the NCAA cut-offs. Presumbly the designated scoring swimmers are usually faster, thereby suggesting that they have not tapered as much for this meet so as to have better NCAA swims. Therefore, it appears to me that a mistake was made in either not… Read more »

ArtVanDeLegh10
Reply to  Thunderbolt
11 years ago

Just because the non scorers would have scored a lot of points in one event, still doesn’t mean they will score a bunch of points in their other 2 events. I agree that swimmers like Picard and Garnier would have scored more points than some of the other scorers, but lets wait until all the swimmers have swum 3 events.

These guys are probably a lot more rested than some of the Stanford swimmers on the scoring team.

I agree that Stanford looks like they might not qualify everyone I’m sure they thought would make the meet. After the first two days, I’m sitting back wondering which of the Pac 12 studs will not be swimming individual events at NCAAs.… Read more »

WHOKNOWS
11 years ago

Those who acess to PAC-12 TV, the women’s PAC-12 swimming champs will be aired tonight 7:30-10:30 p.m. and tomorrow (Wednesday) from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Max
11 years ago

Stanfords streak is in trouble…

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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