Up/Downs on Final Day of Women’s NCAA’s

Here’s how the up/down’s shake out after the last day of prelims at the 2012 Women’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships.

Cal comes into the last day with a 67-point lead. That sounds like a huge margin to make up, but it’s not totally out of reach. If Georgia wins the 400 free relay and Cal finishes, say outside of the top 4, that’s 10 points already. Georgia would then be counting on a few upsets to help them out. Breeja Larson taking down Caitlin Leverenz in the 200 breaststroke; Cal’s Catherine Breed not scoring in the mile; Liv Jensen somehow finishing 4th in the 100 free (with Geer, Vanderpool-Wallace, and Romano hanging around, there’s certainly three capable of beating her).

The Bulldogs missed a huge opportunity with the 9th and 10th qualifiers in the 200 breaststroke. If they could have gotten both of those swimmers into the A-Final instead, then they would have begun feeling really good about their chances.

But Cal has one more ace-in-the-hole. Even if everything goes perfectly in the swimming for Georgia, Cal’s Kahley Rowell is diving on her best event, the platform, where she could place as high as the A-Final (follow those prelim results here).

All-in-all, I’d call Georgia needing a DQ to have a chance at this meet, but that’s not totally out of the question (we’ve already seen a superstar DQ in this meet).

After that, this race will come down to the final relay, as every meet should. The A-Final of the 400 free relay includes 8 of the top 9 teams in the standings after day 2 (and who should be 8 out of 9 entering that relay as well). Texas A&M is the only team without an A-Relay, but they should be mid-free relay, and they’ve got a shot at two titles (Larson and Adams), so their individual points should help balance that out. At this point, I’d say the final standings will likely end up exactly as they sit, even though the scores are incredibly tight through the middle.

“Up’s” are swimmers in the A-Final, and “Down’s” are swimmers in the B-Final. Note that there are no prelims in the 1650, so up/down’s are based on seeding.