The Stanford Cardinal women capped an undefeated season by beating the defending NCAA Champs in their season finale, a 172-128 drubbing of California.
Swimming at home, Stanford won 11 of 16 events, including both relays and an individual triple from fab freshman Ella Eastin.
Eastin, one of the top high schoolers to come out of California last year, went undefeated on the day, and wasn’t even pushed. She won the 200 fly by two and a half seconds, going 1:54.60 to beat Cal sophomore Noemie Thomas (1:57.14). In the 500 free and 200 IM, Eastin beat out Cal freshman Kathleen Baker. The 500 saw Eastin go 4:46.89 and Baker 4:52.82, and the IM race was a 1:58.23 to 1:59.97 victory for Eastin.
Stanford also won both relays with flying colors. The meet opened with the 200 medley, where the Cardinal went 1:38.25 on a huge 27.2 breaststroke split from defending NCAA champ Sarah Haase. That was the difference-maker after sophomore Ally Howe tied NCAA champ Rachel Bootsma of Cal in the backstroke leg. Both women were 25.11. But Haase exposed Cal’s breaststroke weakness, outsplitting her opponent by more than two seconds and essentially ending the race right there.
In the 400 free relay at the close of the meet, Stanford junior Lia Neal anchored in 48.43 to seal the win. All four Cardinal swimmers were under 50 – Janet Hu was 49.4 on the leadoff, Lindsey Engel 49.9 and Julia Ama 49.7 to go 3:17.56 as a team. Cal was 3:19.38, but did get a nice 48.71 from freshman Amy Bilquist on the anchor leg.
Bilquist was a major bright spot for Cal, winning both backstrokes individually. The freshman went 52.59 to beat out Hu in the 100 back, and added a 1:53.80 to deny Hu the win in the 200 back.
Haase swept the breaststroke races for Stanford, going 1:00.25 in the 100 – the event she won at last year’s NCAAs – and 2:12.18 in the 200. Neal took home the 100 free title, going 48.47.
Stanford was also helped by a diving sweep from Gracia Leydon-Mahoney. The sophomore led 1-2 finishes on 1-meter and 3-meter.
Cal, without last year’s Pac-12 distance champ Cierra Runge, still managed to get a 1000 free win, with the versatile Celina Li putting up a 9:58.98. At the other end of the yardage spectrum, Farida Osman went 22.45 to win the 50 freestyle, beating out her teammate Bilquist by two tenths of a second. Cal’s other win came from Thomas, who went 52.58 for a nice 100 fly win.
I was just thinking of all the great recruiting classes they got the last 4 years and they still get beat by Stanford and USC.
Pelton hasn’t been good all year so don’t know if she has checked out? No breastroke still and no diving? And really no distance above a 200! But yes maybe they just want to show what they have til March?
How could Cal look so bad with so much talent???
To be fair, I don’t think Cal’s performances were uniformly poor. Thomas and Bilquist looked quite strong in their races. Baker, Osman, Acker and Naze just seemed a bit flat, but they’ve put up some solid performances just earlier in the season, so yesterday’s results can likely be attributed to how they are responding to this stage in their training cycle. McLaughlin sporting a neckbrace is not a good look for her or the program, and of course her absence partially contributed to Saturday’s scoring margin.
I thought Li’s efforts should be commended for showing heart and racing hard, even if the times were not extraordinary by her standards. More concerning in my view were Garcia (as noted by others… Read more »
The neck brace became required after an injury during training. How does an elite swimmer fracture a vertebrae while in the water? Swimmers must do what the coach demands. Doesn’t make the official training program look good. Hope injured ms. McLaughlin heals in time for Omaha.
Fast 200 fly by Eastin.
Bilquist’s backstroke looks good.
Marina Garcia, a breaststroker, swims the 1000 free. I know it’s a training meet and usual by McKeever but it always looks weird to me.
Cal’s breaststroke still pathetic.
GLM shows why she has been a double diving world junior champion in 2012. I believe she didn’t compete last season at Stanford.
Overall, it looks like Cal girls were less rested than Stanford girls. We’ll see in March.
Meehan has the Cardinal sharp (Georgia still will win it all this year)–doubt he would give them rest at all for a dual–even against Cal–