2015 Men’s Pac-12 Championships: Day 3 Prelims Real-Time Recap

PAC 12 MEN

• Dates: Wednesday, March 4th – Saturday, March 7th; Prelims 11AM/Finals 6PM
• Location: Federal Way, WA  (Pacific Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: California (results)
• Live Results
• Psych Sheets 
• Live Video: N/A
• Championship Central

Catching Up:

• Day 1 Recap
• Day 1 Scoring Analysis
• Day 2 Prelims Recap
• Day 2 Finals Recap, 5 Big Things, Scoring Analysis
• Day 3 Scratch Report

400 IM – PRELIMS

In response to Stanford’s Dave Nolan’s crazy fast 200 IM swim last night, Cal’s Josh Prenot put together an impressive swim of his own.  In prelims this morning, Prenot clocked a 3:40.84 to set a new Pac-12 Meet Record, surpassing the previous meet record mark he owned (3:41.82) from back in 2013.  Prenot now 7th in the nation in the event.

Splits are as follows:

50.30
55.88
1:02.05
52.61

The Cal junior touched in 3:42.20 to win last year’s Pac-12 title, so he is certainly aiming himself in the right trajectory to continue making a major impact in this event on the conference and on the overall NCAA scale.  Prenot’s freshman teammate, Connor Green, claimed third in this morning’s event, finishing in 3:43.04 for his best time this year by almost 13 seconds.  His time would have earned him second place overall in this event at last year’s Pac-12 championships.

Stanford freshman Curtis Ogren also did some uber damage in this event, coming in 2nd with his prelims time of 3:41.23.  This time additionally surpassed the previous meet record mark, but also shaves a over a full second off of his lifetime best of 3:43.64 set last February at Sectionals.

Senior Adam Hinshaw (Cal) earned 4th in his time of 3:44.69, followed by Stanford junior Danny Thomson who won heat two and ended up 5th overall in a time of 3:45.34.  Arizona managed to get two swimmers in the final, in freshman Nick Thorne (3:45.75) and Michael Meyer (3:46.19) for 6th and 8th places, respectively. Stanford’s Max Williamson rounded out the top 8 with his time of 3:45.89.

 100 FLY – PRELIMS

As expected, the USC Trojan butterfly contingent came up big this morning, going 4 up/1 down on the 100 fly event, but point-leader Stanford came out firing as well, with a total of 3 up/3 down when it was all said and done. However, it was Cal’s Seth Stubblefield who clocked the fastest time of the morning (45.86), representing the only swimmer to earn an NCAA automatic qualifying time of the prelims.  Stubblefield’s time of 45.86 is a massive personal best, only having gone faster at last year’s NCAAs where he clocked 46.06 in that meet’s prelims.

USC’s top finisher this morning was freshman Ralf Tribunstov who knocked over a second off of his seed time to touch the wall just .06 behind Stubblefield to set-up a potentially finish-by-a-fingernail match-up again tonight.  Tribunstov just missed the NCAA A cut by 1/100.  USC teammates Santo Condorelli (46.31), Michael Domagala (46.34) and Dylan Carter (46.73) will be joining Tribunstov in the final, as they finished in 5th, 6th and 8th places, respectively.

3rd place this morning was ASU Sun Devil Tadas Duskinas, who dropped almost a second to finish in 46.10, followed closely by Stanford freshman Andrew Liang who touched just .10 later in 46.20 for 4th place.  Liang’s teammate, sophomore Connor Black, is positioned in 7th from his morning swim, clocking a time of 46.65 to drop about a half second off of his season best.

200 FREE – PRELIMS

Last year’s Pac-12s saw 1:34.63 as the top 200 free time coming out of prelims and this year’s #1 time is not too far off, as no swimmers were able to slide under the NCAA qualifying standard of 1:33.62 in any heat.  USC’s Reed Malone finished his race with a solid 1:34.01 time to place him 14th overall in the country and in lane 4 for tonight’s A-Final, and he will have two other Trojans accompanying him the tonight’s final.  500 freestyle title winner Cristiano Quintero (1:34.98) and Chad Bobrosky (1:35.04) finished consecutively in 5th and 6th places to set themselves up nicely for tonight’s swim.

Stanford’s Tom Kremer was prelims runner-up with a time of 1:34.32 for his efforts and he had Utah’s Nick Soedel hot on his heels, with the Ute earning the 3rd seed in a time of 1:34.50.  Cal’s Long Gutierrez (1:34.86) finished in 4th, while two Cardinal swimmers claimed 7th and 8th, as Thomas Stephens and Drew Cosgarea charged to the wall in 1:35.16 and 1:35.25, respectively.

100 BREAST – PRELIMS

The expected big names are at the top of the rankings coming out of today’s prelims, with Cal senior Chuck Katis clocking a 52.00 and Arizona senior Kevin Cordes registering a 52.13 this morning, both clearing the NCAA automatic qualifying standard for first and second seeds.  Cordes added .09, while Katis dropped .09, so we’ll see how this “see-saw of time” evens out tonight in the finals.

But, the two have formidable competitors waiting to pounce in USC’s Andrew Malone (52.58 for 3rd) and ASU’s Thibaut Capitaine (53.21 for 4th), not to mention the USC power team of Steven Stumph (52.37 for 5th) and Morten Klarskov (53.38 for 7th).

Cal’s second swimmer to make tonight’s finals is Connor Hoppe, who dropped about 7/10 to register a solid 53.36 for the freshman.  ASU’s Christian Lorenz touched the wall in 53.39 for 8th this morning as the second Sun Devil representative in tonight’s final.

100 BACK – PRELIMS

USC freshman Ralf Tribunstov swam tenaciously this morning, as he followed up his 100 butterfly prelims performance with a record-breaking swim the 100 back to end the day.  Tribunstov touched the wall in 44.95 to clear the previous meet record, his school’s record and set himself up as the top seed heading into tonight’s finals.

USC’s Luca Spinazzola came in 2nd in 45.40, followed by Cal sophomore and last year’s Pac-12 title winner, Ryan Murphy who clocked a 45.68.  Another Cal swimmer finished right behind Murphy with Jacob Pebley coming in 4th in 46.10, while Bear Sven Campbell’s 47.06 was good enough to claim 6th overall.

Stanford’s Ryan Arata touched the wall in 5th in a time of 46.88 and will be joined by two other Cardinal in tonight’s final, as last night’s 200 IM smasher, Dave Nolan nabbed the 7th seed (47.11) and Patrick Conaton claimed 8th in 47.62.  That makes the tally among the top three teams 3 up/1 down for Stanford, 3 up/3 down for Cal and 2 up for USC.