Despite their decline to 14th place during the 2015-16 season, the Stanford men have put themselves back on the map after taking 5th at the 2017 NCAA Championships. Before the 2013 NCAA Championships, in which they finished 7th, Stanford had finished in the top 5 for 3 consecutive decades. Their 14th place finish in 2016 was the lowest they had placed since their 15th place finish during the 1978-79 season, and marked the first time they fell out of the top 10 since then.
Stanford Men’s NCAA Finishes Since 2010:
- 2010- 4th
- 2011- 3rd
- 2012- 3rd
- 2013- 7th
- 2014- 9th
- 2015- 6th
- 2016- 14th
- 2017- 5th
The Stanford men improved markedly from their performance in 2016. After finishing 14th last season with 112.5 points, they turned it around to take 5th at the 2017 NCAA meet, more than doubling their score with 242 points. Compared to their 3 All-Americans and zero top 8 relays in 2016, they have 9 All-Americans in 2017 and finished in the top 8 of 4 out of the 5 relays.
Including diving, Stanford had 12 individual scorers in 2017 versus their 8 individual scorers in 2016. They also scored in 13 individual events compared to the 9 individual events they scored in last season. All but a few of Stanford’s individual scorers will return next season, as they graduate Tom Kremer, Jimmy Yoder, and Bradley Christensen. They’ll be added some top-level recruits who could make up for the lost scorers, however, includingSwimSwam’s #3 recruit in the class of 2017: Matthew Hirschberger.
Sprinter Sam Perry was absolutely brilliant on the final day, swimming the 100 free 4 times from a flat start between the individual event and the 400 free relay, and posting 41-second swims in each of them. His best swim of the day, a 41.77, broke the former school record of 41.90 set by Ben Wildman-Tobriner in 2007. Freshman Grant Shoults also took down a school record, finishing 4th in the 500 free in 4:10.23. Abrahm DeVine became the first Stanford man in history to break 3:40, lowering the school record by over 2 seconds with his 3:37.73.
The Cardinal also saw a relay school record go down, as Shoults, Kremer, DeVine, and Liam Egan knocked over 2 seconds off the mark, placing 7th in 6:12.66.
Stanford 2016-17 All-Americans (Top 8 Finishes):
- Grant Shoults (500 free, 1650 free, 800 free relay)
- Abrahm DeVine (400 IM, 400 free relay, 800 free relay)
- Sam Perry (100 free, 200 medley relay, 400 medley relay, 400 free relay)
- Theodore Miclau (platform diving)
- Andrew Liang (200 medley relay, 400 medley relay, 400 free relay)
- Ryan Dudzinski (200 medley relay, 400 medley relay)
- Matt Anderson (200 medley relay, 400 medley relay)
- Tom Kremer (400 free relay, 800 free relay)
- Liam Egan (800 free relay)
Stanford 2016-17 Honorable Mention All-Americans (B Final Finishes):
- True Sweetser (500 free, 1650 free)
- Tom Kremer (200 fly, 200 IM, 200 free, 200 free relay)
- Abrahm DeVine (200 IM, 200 Back)
- Sam Perry (50 free, 200 free relay)
- Andrew Liang (100 fly, 200 free relay)
- Jimmy Yoder (200 fly)
- Liam Egan (500 free)
- Patrick Conaton (200 back)
- Curtis Ogren (400 IM)
- Ryan Dudzinski (100 back)
- Spencer DeShon (200 free relay)
- Cole Cogswell (200 free relay)
- Cameron Thatcher (3-meter diving)
Big congrats to Ted! First big change was having Jeff Kostoff join the coaching staff in the summer of 2016. That let everyone know Stanford was serious about having well-conditioned athletes. It’ll be interesting to see if Shoults, Sweetser, or Devine can make the US team for the Budapest Worlds later this summer.
It was a close battle for 5th place between Stanford, Indiana and Southern California.
I think it came down to the final relay, didn’t it?
No question Stanford had a good championships, with all those school records and top 8 finishes.
Next year they get 20.0 and 20.3 sprinters – sprint depth was the biggest weakness this year. Seems this is a team on the rise for at least a couple more years.
Congrats to Stanford on the comeback. Where are Auburn and Michigan, the other traditional powers?
They both look to have had some losses and misses in recruiting the past few years, and just aren’t as deep as they usually are. Both of them have a few good recruits for next year, but nothing difference-making, and not enough to keep up with Indiana or Florida at the top of their respective conferences.
OFFSET #OslinAtWorlds