Coming off a big morning, the California Golden Bears looked to extend their lead over Stanford in night 3 of the 2013 Men’s PAC-12 Championship. While the big story from this week is Stanford’s unprecedented 31-year conference title streak under fire from their archrival, both teams (as well as Arizona and USC) have made it clear their main focus lies in Indianapolis in the coming weeks.
Cal appears to be using the same strategy it has for years; rest everyone just enough to qualify for NCAAs in their respective events, and look to light it up at the big one. Stanford, under first-year head coach Ted Knapp, has clearly taken a different path than past Skip Kenney-led squads. Rather than fully tapering a majority of his swimmers for this week, Knapp has proved he wants everyone to know that a great team performance at NCAA’s is Stanford’s number one priority.
To see a breakdown of who is in and who is out of NCAA’s, check at the bottom of this column, below the event recaps.
Men’s 400 IM
Cal led off the evening with an early 1-2 finish, thanks to freshman Josh Prenot (3:41.82 – new meet record) and sophomore Adam Hinshaw (3:44.36). When Prenot had the lead at the halfway mark (1:47.93 at the 200 mark), it was clear the Orcutt, CA native was going to run away with the race. An All-American-caliber breaststroker, Prenot played to his strength as we have seen him do so many times this season, splitting 30.37-30.82 on the 3rd 100 to open up a 3+ second lead on the field.
Stanford’s Matt Thompson touched third in 3:45.82. The senior, who was runner-up in this event a year ago, looks poised to jump into the upper echelon in this event in Indianapolis. Sophomore Eric Solis, a junior transfer from Arizona, jumped into the top 30 to likely qualify for his first NCAA championship with a 3:46.32.
Utah’s Kristian Kron was 5th (3:48.10), Ben Hinshaw of Cal was 6th (3:48.10), Robert Hommel of Stanford was 7th (3:48.69), and Arizona freshman Michael Meyer (3:51.21, 3:47.54 in prelims) touched 8th.
Two big swims out of the B final… In the first points heat of the evening, Drew Cosgarea and Bryan Offutt went 1-2 for the Cardinal, each qualifying for NCAAs with times of 3:44.40 and 3:46.30. That’s huge for Stanford; the North Baltimore tandem (who each scored last year) looked like they could miss qualifying for NCAA’s before tonight.
Men’s 100 fly
Cal went 1-2 for the second straight event. Tom Shields won his 3rd career PAC 12 100 fly title, busting the :45 barrier in the process (44.92). Teammate Marcin Tarczynski switched over from the 100 backstroke (his middle day event from last season) to finish 2nd for the Bears in 45.97. With a deep backstroke core (Shields, newcomers Tony Cox and Jacob Pebley), it will be interesting to see which event the junior from Poland elects to swim in Indianapolis. Considering the overall depth of the 100 back, don’t be shocked if he sticks to this event.
Giles Smith, runner up to Shields in this event at NCAA’s last year, touched 3rd in 46.16. Though the Wildcats look more prepared for this meet than previous years, that’s still a great time at this point in the season for an Arizona swimmer. USC freshman and former national high school record holder Maclin Davis was 4th in 46.54. Stanford teammates Gray Umbach and Jack Lane touched 5th and 6th in 46.57 and 46.68, respectively. Wade Allen of UCSB (brother of former Stanford sprint standout Jake Allen) was 7th in 46.69, and Alex Coci of ASU finished 8th in 46.82. With their times from today, all 8 of these swimmers are in position to make NCAA’s.
Men’s 200 free
USC joined the party with a 1-2 finish of their own: Cristian Quintero ran away with his second race of the weekend, posting the country’s third fastest time of 1:33.21. His teammate Dimitri Colupaev, who was last year’s champion in this event, posted his fastest time of the season in 1:34.44.
Cal freshman Trent Williams jumped into NCAA qualification contention, finishing 3rd in 1:35.22. Stanford teammates Thomas Stephens (1:35.44) and Tom Kremer (1:35.60) were 4th and 6th, split by Chad Bobrosky of USC (1:35.57). Will Hamilton from Cal (1:35.61) and Nick Soedel of Utah rounded out the head.
Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or won the console heat in 1:35.53.
Men’s 100 breast
American record holder Kevin Cordes was well under the 52.0 barrier again, winning in 51.65, though that was a few tenths slower than he was in prelims.
Sprint-freestyle extraordinaire Vlad Morozov swam a lifetime best time of 52.06 to finish 2nd, yet another USC School Record for him. He really is impressively versatile; remember that he was an Olympian in the 100 backstroke.
Cal senior Trevor Hoyt bettered his morning swim to touch 3rd in 52.78. Carl Mickelson of Arizona was 4th in 52.88.
Men’s 100 back
There were no really mind-blowing times in this race, but Cal’s Tom Shields got a good warmup for his upcoming double at NCAA’s, where he will be trying to repeat as the 100 fly/100 back champion. Here, his winning mark was 46.12, ahead of Stanford sophomore and defending Pac 12 Champions David Nolan. Nolan wasn’t able to get out on his first 50 quite as fast as he did in the prelims, and that results in a 46.38: a small addition for the Cardinal.
Cal freshman Jacob Pebley took 3rd in 46.51, and USC’s Luca Spinazzola was 4th in 46.66.
Men’s 400 medley relay
There was a ton of suspense after the final of this 400 medley relay, as Cal and USC finished in a bang-boom finish, followed by a touchpad malfunction.
When the times were officialized, however, it was Cal who took the win in 3:06.09, with the Trojans 2nd in 3:06.17. Those times both rank in the top 5 in the country this season, though Arizona’s swim from Winter Nationals is actually the fastest by a Pac-12 swim this season.
Among the most impressive splits were a 44.68 from Tom Shields as Cal’s butterflier, and a 51.59 from Vlad Morozov as USC’s breaststroker. USC only gives up a bit having Morozov as their breaststroker rather than their anchor, as Dimitri Colupaev still anchored in a very fast 42.22.
Arizona ended up 3rd in 3:06.80; Cordes was on the B-relay in the 200 medley relay, but here made it onto the A with a 50.91 split. Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or anchored them in a 42.2 of his own, thoguh a 47.3 leadoff by Friedemann cost them at the end.
Stanford was 4th in 3:08.08. They have moved Nolan back to the backstroke leg (46.20) with Mason Shaw splitting 53.40 on the breaststroke leg. That’s after having used Nolan as their breaststroker earlier this year.
Team Standings With 1 Day To Go
The team scores below include platform diving, though the platform won’t be formally included in the official scoring until Wednesday’s last finals session.
Headed into the final day, Cal has more than a 50-point margin over Stanford headed into the last day of competition. Don’t mistake that, however, for this meet being a lock for Cal. Stanford, last year, had a nearly 80-point margin headed into the meet’s final day, and then outscored Cal by another 30-or-so swimming points on the meet’s last day.
Stanford should have a scoring advantage in the 200 backstroke, if they hit their tapers; Cal isn’t quite as good in the 100 as they were in the 50, so the Cardinal have an opportunity to just about match there; the 200 breast will be a heavy swing in Cal’s favor; the 200 fly and the 1650 both could go either way.
Cal is in a very good position headed into the meet’s final day, but they can’t lose focus. If they have a bad day and Stanford a good one, then this meet could go either direction.
1. Univ of California – Berkeley 600
2. Stanford University 549
3. University of Southern Calif 420.5
4. University of Arizona 381
5. The University of Utah 235.5
6. Arizona State University 211
7. UC Santa Barbara 154
8. Cal Poly 74
We saw a number of new swimmers jump into NCAA qualification range today. Looking at the top times from this year and referencing the NCAA selection process (which calls for a maximum of 235 swimmers, plus 35 divers), the cut line for individual events appears to be 32 swimmers in some events, and 33 swimmers in others. Until the end of the weekend (after the last night of PAC 12s and the other remaining championship meets), we can only use our best estimates. Here are the individual qualifiers for each team, if the selection process was done tonight:
| CAL | STANFORD | ARIZONA | USC |
| Shields | Wayne | Smith | Morozov |
| Stubblefield | Nolan | Shapira Bar-Or | Colupaev |
| Fleming | Kremer | Barber | Bobrosky |
| Gimondi | Pickard | Friedemann | Quintero |
| Williams | Cosgarea | Sheppard | Spinazzola |
| A. Hinshaw | Thomson | Miller | Lendrum |
| Bagshaw | Offutt | Cordes | Karpov |
| Tarczynski | Swanston | Mickelson | Lujan-Rivera |
| Pebley | Thompson | Steel | Bloch |
| Hoyt | Montgomery | Rowan | Wright |
| Prenot | Umbach | Meyer | Wagner |
| Hamilton | Lane | Joye | Davis |
| Higgins | Solis |
In addition, Nick Soedel has qualified for Utah.
No D2 swimmers were in the rankings I used.
why are we talking about DII people?
Because DII swimmers can go to DI champs if they make the cuts, I believe. So this could affect the number of participants per event from DI schools.
DL – I think there was a point in time that this was true, but it no longer is, to my knowledge at least. DI swimmers swim DI championships, DII swim DII.
Food for thought… Working quickly with the top times as of yesterday (with some basic assumptions for the guys with more than 3 top times), it appears 8 swimmers would be going to the tiebreaker for the final 3 spots. Everyone through line 31 gets in. 3 guys from line 32 get in.
The line 31 guys are as follows:
Cooper, Tripp, Texas, 31st in the 100 Fly
Gimondi, Fabio, Cal, 31st in the 50 Free
Higgins, Christian, Cal, 31st in the 100 Breast
Jenkins, Preston, BYU, 31st in the 200 Back
Webb, Christopher, Virginia, 31st in the 1650 Free
The line 32 guys are as follows:
Bloch, Chase, USC, 32nd in 200… Read more »
You also have to consider that in some events like the 100 breast there are a lot of D2 guys in there, so Higgins is actually more like 28th right now.
Ole, what did you do for your count calculation? I ran a quick query and got that 33 swimmers per event (removing those who won’t swim certain events) coming out to 237 swimmers… Did this quickly though, so I could be wrong.
Also, I have Pickard as definitely in… he’s at 32, but Shields, Weiss, and Ress are in front of him… none of those guys will swim the 2 free.
Looks like I didn’t edit out enough swims from guys that won’t enter specific individual events. I still had to make a few assumptions (Matt Elliott swimming the 100 breast over the 400 IM for example) that could be way off base. There could also be some whopper of an error I’m just not seeing given the hurried nature everything was put together, so clearly take with a grain of salt.
After adjusting for more swims that won’t be entered, I added some times from today’s Pac-12 prelims. I’m now calculating 234 swimmers through line 30 (removing the multiple swims moved guys up the list), and seven guys at line 31. Those guys and their events are as follows… Read more »
Ole,
Found a pretty big error of my own (I think). I’m getting something around line 30, as well, now.
Ole
And what happen to guys who are as 32nd on some events.. but are qualified for others already like Arthur Mendes ? ( did not look for other cases I was just checking his times and was he was 32nd on 200 fly but 18th on 100 fly). He will be able to swim both events or he have a chance of being cut off the 200 fly?
Rafael – guys who are already entered in an individual on an invitation can swim ANY race that they have hit the “B” standard for, regardless of ranking. So there will be more than 32 in each individual. There are a ton of “B” standards, usually at least 100 per event, so Mendes, for example, will be in without any problems in both the 100 fly and 200 fly.
That’s whyt he individual entries cap is by number of SWIMMERS as compared to number of SWIMS.
Hope that makes sense!
Is that true for the women as well?
Ole, Karpov from USC is actually tied for 30th, and Morozov is in front of him (don’t think he’ll swim the back). Should be in at T-29.
He may beat Loche out in fly not certain about Mcgill.
Is Shields rested for this meet?
To have a great team performance at NCAA’s is Stanford’s number one priority for the new training staff. Wow! If it wasn’t the goal before and if I have well understood it seems it wasn’t, I would have fired the previous training staff very quickly. It seems logical to make everything you can to be the fastest possible at the most important meet of the season and not at a conference meet 3 weeks before.
Well… you would have fired Skip Kenny. And then you would have promptly been fired as well. Sounds like you may not know who Skip is, read up: http://www.gostanford.com/sports/m-swim/mtt/kenney_skip00.html
Thank you for his profile. Great accomplishments. Especially in the 80s. But if he is a so great coach why did he prepare more his swimmers for the conference meet rather than the NCAA championships for a few years now? Just to continue a streak? To the detriment of the biggest meet of the season? If I have well understood it didn’t please to all Stanford fans.
Stanford is a wonderful school and a great place to be a student athlete. That said, over Skip’s 30 years is a conference title streak and a few NCAA titles decades back, but also a complete underperformance vis a vis the talent he had at NCAAs. In the 1980s he was blessed with recruiting riches and won a few. And really, who could screw up a college team with Morales, Moffett and Kostoff among others? Skip almost did. Zero life best swims for Kostoff at Stanford. In the 1990s he got every recruit he wanted and made little of it. In the 2000s he got outed as an abusive and dishonest leader. It will always be a black eye on… Read more »
Err, um, well, he did win 4 NCAA championship titles in the 90’s. I’d say that is pretty good use of the top recruits he got, but I guess you have higher expectations…
Not true about Kostoff. If I remember correctly, he broke the American and NCAA record in the 1650 (as a Junior in 1987) with an incredible 14:37. He also had lifetime bests in the 400 IM as well (which he also won at NCAAs). Also, Stanford won 3 in a row in the 90’s (92-95) and won in 98 as well, in addition to the 85-87 titles. Since then they’ve been top three every year except for two years when they were fourth (1999 and 2009). Most DI coaches would love to have that kind of record. If you are going to criticize, at least base your criticism on facts.
I think it’s a little too early to proclaim Knapp’s changes as definitive successes or failures yet. Depends on how the team performs at NCAAs. The one part that seems odd to me is how poorly Ted judged exhibition swimmers. There are several examples of better swims coming from Stanford exhibition swimmers than competition swimmers at Pac-12s. Knapp’s been on the farm for decades, so it’s not like he inherited a brand new team. Those miscues are on him.
I think some of those exhibition swims being faster than those swims not exhibitioned has something to do with the amount of rest that each swimmer has gotten… i.e. some of the younger, slower swimmers are more rested or even tapered for this meet, so they can hit best times whereas the swimmers that are definitely going to NCAA’s are not close to completely rested for this meet
Seriously. Amen. I was going to say something about all the people that are calling Ted out for not choosing his roster correctly. Duckduckgoose, those miscues aren’t on him – Ted’s focus isn’t on winning Pac-12s. It’s about performing well at NCAA’s. As Joe said, the younger (typically freshman) swimmers that have performed at a certain level all year that indicates they probably won’t be making NCAA’s don’t end up being official swimmers. However, that also means that they are fully tapered and shaved at this meet, allowing them to post times that are competitive amongst the team (but not when the unrested guys are fully tapered). Sure, putting some of those fully rested guys on the official squad probably… Read more »
Impressive Vlad Morozov in the 100 breast! He’s really a pure sprinter in every stroke. Like Florent Manaudou. If he swims in SCM the 100 IM it could be explosive. Perhaps he’ll swim this race against Ryan Lochte at the next SCM world championships.
Didn’t he win the 100 IM at some of meets in Europe this past Fall? I can’t remember the meets, but he has swum it, and he is very fast at it.
Tom Shields is one of the best butterflier i have seen in a long time ( apart From M Phelps of course ) . When is he gonne shift his power into 50 meter pool races ????
Soon, I think. He dropped a lot to get 4th at trials in the 100 last year.
You must also know Chad le Clos. Perhaps one of the best on fly you have seen in a long time (apart from the king). Or Ian Crocker. Please, Tom Shields isn’t, until now, in the same category. I admit he has well improved for 2 years in long course. He could swim around 51.50 this summer and will play the 2 qualification spots for Barcelona with Ryan Lochte and Tyler McGill. We’ll see but if the Americans want to win the medley relay they need a great fly leg. If not, Japan and France can win.
.
Sorry but France has never had good breastrokers if i can remember well since Stephane Caron era ( 1988 ) and Usa has won all medley relays since years ans years ….i will never bet on the french team to win in a medley world championship . Your chauvisnism is wrongly placed in this statement . Sorry
I apologize for stating the obvious:
The reason why Shields is so much better than everyone else in college in SCY is because he’s so much better UW. He’s a good swimmer, but a great UW kicker. LCM swimming forces you to be a great swimmer. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll ever be a great LCM swimmer because of this.
Maybe, but if Misty Hyman could learn to swim LC, I think Shields can too 🙂
Misty Hyman had only one great LCM swim, and fortunately for her it was at the Olympics final.
Apart from that 2:05 olympics swim, Hyman never broke 2:09.
Shields went 51.86 in the 100m fly last year. Phelps was 51.65 at 20 years old (actually was faster at 19 with a 51.34), so I think Shields is doing just fine.
Phelps went 51.10 in the 100 fly at the 2003 worlds which was actually faster than the time that won gold for him in ’12
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2003_World_Aquatics_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_100_metre_butterfly)
Phelps was 51.10 in 2003, when he was turning 19, which was incidentally faster than he was in ’12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2003_World_Aquatics_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_100_metre_butterfly
I said the same thing about Lochte when he was tearing up the NCAAs his junior and senior years. Sure, he was an Olympian, but he didn’t have the raw power above the water that we see today. It took him about three years of concerted work, but look at how good he has become.
Even thought they came in 3rd, I have to think Arizona is the clear favorite to win the 4 x 100 medley relay at NCAAs. Seems like they should have significant drops in 3 of the 4 legs of the race.
I am a little disappointed we didn’t get to see Nolan swim the 100 breast on the relay.