2022 MEN’S PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 2-Saturday, March 5, 2022
- Weyerhauser King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way, Washington
- Defending champions: Cal (4x)
- Start times: 10:30am prelims / 6:00pm finals (PST)
- Event Schedule
- Diving Results
- Championship Central
- Live Results
- Live Stream
As we reported earlier, the 2022 Pac-12 Championships is set to be a solid race between 4-time reigning champions Cal, Stanford, and ASU. The meet technically got going last week when the diving events took place, in which Cal scored 0 points.
Stanford is currently in the lead with 131 points from diving, while ASU is 131 behind with 31, and Cal is yet to score. The swimming race will, however, begin tonight with the 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays – giving Cal a chance to pick up some preliminary points.
Heat Sheets
Men’s 200 Medley Relay
- NCAA Record: 1:21.54 – Texas (2017)
- Pac-12 Record: 1:21.82 – USC (2018)
- Pac-12 Championships Record: 1:22.16 – Cal (2020)
- NCAA “A” Standard – 1:24.22
- NCAA “B” Standard – 1:24.83
Top 3:
- Stanford – 1:22.74
- ASU – 1:22.95
- Cal – 1:23.26
The Stanford men picked up the first Pac-12 swimming title of the meet with their winning effort of 1:22.74 in the men’s 200 medley relay. Leon MacAlister got things started for them with a 21.03 backstroke split, trailing Cal’s Daniel Carr who opened with a 20.97, and Arizona’s State Jack Dolan who threw down a 20.96.
Following MacAlister, Ron Polonsky was a 23.40 on breaststroke, getting Stanford ahead of ASU. The split of the race, however, came from Andrei Minakov who posted a 19.49 butterfly leg to put Stanford in first place, hitting the wall in a 1:03.92.
That split from Minakov is the 3rd-fastest split in history behind Joseph Schooling‘s 19.36 and 19.45 splits from his time at Texas. He replaces Louisville’s Dalton Lowe as the #2 man in history. Lowe swam that split earlier this season at ACCs.
- 19.36 – Joe Schooling – 2016
- 19.45 – Joe Schooling – 2017
- 19.49 – Andrei Minakov – 2022
- 19.50 – Dalton Lowe – 2022
- 19.52 – Blaise Vera – 2021
- 19.57 – Luca Urlando – 2022
Lowe’s swim for Louisville contributed to their 1:21.84 at the meet, which is currently the top time in the country this season. Stanford is now the #7 team with their 1:22.74.
Arizona State came in with a 1:22.95 for silver and Cal was not far behind in a 1:23.26 for the bronze medal. Notably, all 6 teams competing here got under the NCAA A cut of 1:24.22 as USC came 4th in a 1:23.76, Utah was 5th in a 1:23.87, and Arizona rounded out the top 6 with 1:24.10.
Men’s 800 Freestyle Relay
- NCAA Record: 6:05.08 – Texas (2019)
- Pac-12 Record: 6:07.31 – Cal (2019)
- Pac-12 Championships Record: 6:10.94 – Cal (2019)
- NCAA “A” Standard – 6:16.80
- NCAA “B” Standard – 6:21.32
Top 3:
- ASU – 6:07.51
- Stanford – 6:08.73
- Cal – 6:09.98
The ASU men soared to victory in the second relay of the night with a 6:07.51, downing the Pac-12 Championships record by more than 3 seconds. ASU put up the quickest time swum in the history of this meet by beating Cal’s 2019 swim of 6:10.94.
Grant House was the opener here for ASU, putting up a solid time of 1:30.54, which is the 8th-fastest swim in NCAA history and #2 this season. He replaces Shaine Casas‘ 1:30.59 and now sits right behind Drew Kibler‘s #7 time of 1:30.39 from last year’s NCAA Championships.
The nation-wide leader for 2021-2022 is Kieran Smith with his 1:30.42 from SEC Championships, while Matt Sates is now 3rd with his 1:31.16. House also set a new school record here, downing Cameron Craig‘s 1:31.71 from 2017. House’s former PB of 1:31.73 was the #2 ASU time before this.
After House, Carter Swift swam a 1:33.61, Julian Hill a 1:32.20, and Leon Marchand a 1:31.16 to give ASU a total time of 6:07.51. ASU is now #1 in the nation this season, replacing Florida’s 6:08.00 from SECs.
Next up, Stanford got second place with a 6:08.73, courtesy of Luke Maurer (1:32.99 leadoff), Leon MacAlister (1:33.09), Ron Polonsky (1:31.50), and Preston Forst (1:31.15). Both MacAlister and Polonsky swam of both the 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays for Stanford, which both established new school records for the team.
Cal picked up their second 3rd place finish of the night here, hitting a 6:09.98, while the University of Arizona got 4th in 6:14.43. That means 4 of the fastest teams got under the NCAA A cut of 6:16.80, while USC and Utah were over with their respective times of 6:17.03 and 6:26.63.
Team Scores After Day 1
- Stanford – 207 points
- Utah – 183 points
- Arizona – 148 points
- USC – 137 points
- ASU – 105 points
- Cal – 64 points
Destin lasco is very little rested. And that’s a good thing.
Bob Bowman is gonna transform Léon Marchand into a beast for Paris 2024! 😆
Hopefully he will still have some gas for worlds later this year.
At least he will have no competition at French nationals in one month and will be able to qualify without resting. Then he will have more than 3 months to build a new training cycle.
Unlike his rival Carson Foster for example who will have to peak 3 times in 3 months and a half with world trials very close to worlds.
His rival who he’s never raced?
it’d be cool if there was a sport with standardized metric based results that could be applied to every single competitor for an event to help build rivalry/competition or designate the outright best at that sport + discipline
No chance to race if you dont qualify for the olympics. Which Marchand did
Stanford is deep and hot. Even with the history of excellence in that program, they broke the school record in the 4×200 without even using one of the people on the previous team record squad from 2017 (Grant Shoults), who is still on the team and swimming well (in the Stanford-Cal dual meet a few weeks back Shoults had a PB 8:46.79 in the 1000)
With your journalistic insights and contacts, could you maybe find out why they didn’t swim the exhibition relays, which were on the incoming psych sheet in the 4×200, after doing so in the Medley? A couple of those squads had some pretty deep lists of 200 freestylers. Just curious. Did they do them after the TV clicked off? They had a 30 minute block live on Pac-12 Networks for the 800 Free relay. Maybe meet admin was afraid of running over the available TV time slot?
Medley Relay: top 6 all A-cuts. School records for Stanford and Utah.
UofA not a school record but possibly the most impressive of all. With an accumulation of athletes that came in as a backstroker ranked 38th in the conference in the 100 back, a breaststroker 7th ranked in the conference in the 100 breast, a flyer ranked 28th in the conference in the 100 Fly and a freestyler rated 18th in the conference in the 50 free — and put it all together for a relay “A” cut.
Coach Busch and staff doing a great job.
Swim fast all — the rest of the country put up numbers that will require huge improvements on prior years levels… Read more »
Hopefully that indicates he’s not fully rested? Admittedly, I don’t follow the PAC-12 super intensely (see username), but he hasn’t qualified for any individual events. The part to hang your hopes on- he did drop over a second from his previous season best… so hopefully he gets an invite in the 50/100, or wasn’t shaved and will shave for the rest of the meet?
I agree with Reid, you expect a lot more from 1:46 lcm swimmer
Sorry. I appreciate your love of the Bears but that’s just not that good a time anymore.
It would be good for MA.
Take my upvote!
You can when his LC time is a 1:46 and 1:33 mid isn’t even qualifying for NCAAs