2019 MEN’S NCAA SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 27 – Saturday, March 30
- Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, Austin, Texas
- Prelims 10 AM / Finals 6 PM (Central Time)
- Defending champion: Texas (4x) (2018 results)
- Psych Sheet
- Live results
There weren’t any super-significant pre-session scratches before the first prelims session at the 2019 men’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, but as the races began, more big names began to come off the board.
Louisville’s Zach Harting declared a false start in the men’s 500 free. He was the 42nd seed there in 4:18.22, and his focus races are the 100 and 200 butterflies, but his best time of 4:14.92 from last season would have been close to a scoring swim, even if he didn’t improve upon it.
Harting split an encouraging 1:31.14 on a rolling start on Wednesday evening’s 800 free relay for 6th-place Louisville. That’s almost a full second faster than he was on that same relay last year.
Also declaring a false start in the 500 free was Florida sophomore Erge Gezmis, who was the 33rd seed.
In the 200 IM, USC senior Patrick Mulcare declared a false start as the 55th seed. Like with Harting, that scratch doesn’t seem like a big deal on paper. But, Mulcare is better than that seed. His best time of 1:44.00 from the 2017 NCAA Championships would have missed finaling in 2018 by a second, but with two years of development, it’s not hard to project Mulcare as being able to drop a second in this race.
Remember that he slogged his way through the Pac-12 Championships, with a full beard in tow, and only (B) finaled in one of his 3 races: his primary event, the 200 back.
52nd seed Thomas Anderson of Arizona also declared a false start in that race.
Finally, Arizona’s Chatham Dobbs and Florida’s Bayley Main declared false starts in the 50 free. Dobbs was seeded 19th with a 19.26 and Main was seeded 49th with a 19.78.
Because of the nature of declared false starts, because those swimmers weren’t scratched before the scratch deadline, those events will still count as one of their 3 allotted individual events. That would preclude them from being used on all 5 of a team’s relays (unless they scratch, pre-scratch deadline, another event later in the meet). Last year, for example, Louisville used Harting on all 5 relays.
