The first prelims session of the 2013 Pac 12 Men’s Championship is off to a bit of a sluggish start. It appears that all of the major players are waiting until NCAA’s to show their cards, though that could be a dangerous game with how fast we saw the times in the Big Ten, for example.
Men’s 500 Free Prelims
Cal has been working for the past few years on building up their middle-distance group, and even with one member of that group leaving the program this season, they’re really starting to come through. In this prelim, Cal took three of the top five seeds, including a 4:18.80 from Adam Hinshaw for lane 4 in the evening.
USC’s Chad Bobrosky and Cristian Quintero were amongst Cal’s finishes, 2nd and 3rd, in matching 4:19’s, while Jeremy Bagshaw and Will Hamilton were 4:20’s for the Golden Bears.
Note that there were three exhibition swims faster than what it took to A-final in the race: Cal’s Jamey Lyon was a 4:20.8; Stanford’s Chris Pickard was a 4:21.0; and Stanford’s Jeff Garnier was a 4:22.33.
USC’s Dimitri Colupaev slipped to the B-Final in 4:23.09. Based on the split with which he usually finishes this race, he was likely cost a spot in the top 8 as the result of a counting error that had him swim an extra 50; the bell was only rung as he was coming in for the finish, and the card miscounted. He swam to the 525 before he was stopped by his counter. He was entered with no time out of the first heat, and therefore was a ways ahead of the rest of the guys in his race. Expect him to win that B-Final tonight, though.
Men’s 200 IM Prelims
The A-Final of this 200 IM will be entirely from the Bay area, with 5 Stanford Cardinal and 3 Cal Bears earning their way back into the top 8.
David Nolan took the top seed in 1:43.89, about two-and-a-half seconds faster than he had been this season. This swim is much faster than he was in prelims last season; the work he’s done this year on becoming Stanford’s #1 breaststroker has really paid off. He actually had the fastest breaststroke split of the field in 29.62, including ahead of two outstanding breaststrokers in Josh Prenot and Marcin Tarczynski. That’s the leg where Nolan lost the IM race at last year’s NCAA Championships, giving up almost two seconds to Tarczynski: the eventual winner.
Stanford freshman Gray Umbach was 4th in 1:45.13. Stanford senior Matt Thompson was a 1:46.13; just beating out fellow senior Alex Lendrum (1:46.19) for the final spot in the A-Final.
Men’s 50 Free Prelims
Vlad Morozov, unshaved for this meet as he’ll easily qualify for NCAA’s, took the top seed in an impressive-looking 18.92 50 free.
After him, though, the times dropped off markedly, meaning he’ll have at least clean water to swim through heading out in this race. Morozov’s teammate Jack Wagner took the 2nd seed in 19.66, followed by a pair of Cal sophomores Fabio Gimondi (19.76) and Seth Stubblefield (19.80).
What this A-final lacks in fast seed times, it makes up for in variety. UC-Santa Barbara got their first individual swimming finalist of the meet with a 19.82 from Wade Allen for the 5th seed, and Utah got their first A-finalist with a 19.83 from Nick Soedel for 6th. Both are sophomores.
The brand-recognition of the swimmer in the B-final is almost bigger than the A. Aaron Wayne, Giles Smith, and Tony Cox will all be that B heat.
Live meet results available here.
Team Standings (including all diving events) and Up/Downs
1. Stanford 203
2. Arizona 143
3. Utah 131
4. Cal 128
5. Arizona State 128
6. USC 106
7. UCSB 54
8. Cal Poly 44
| Pac 12 Men | Ups | Downs |
| Cal | 9 | 5 |
| Stanford | 8 | 3 |
| USC | 5 | 6 |
| UCSB | 1 | 1 |
| Utah | 1 | 1 |
| Arizona | 0 | 7 |
| Arizona State | 0 | 1 |
| Cal Poly | 0 | 0 |
does anyone know why pac 12 isn’t offering a live stream or any video stream?
cant understand when they have some of the best teams in the nation
Raisky you look better
Wow…Vlad looks great in that photo
Is this sarcasm?
An under 18 relay split would be incredible.
A 39.9 relay split in the 100 would be epic, mind boggling and almost impossible to fathom. But I would guess he does it later this month…
What’s up with all of Stanford’s exhibition swimmers who would have made the A- (2 in the 500) and B- (1 in the 50) Finals? The the coaches just roll the wrong dice with regards to how much time the shaved/tapered guys would drop? Could this come back and hurt them later on in the team race?
It will be interesting to see what Quintero swims on Wednesday. He is entered in both the 100 and the 1650. With that relay split yesterday he really showed some 100 speed
Unimpressive morning session. Like old99 said, none of them would have made the A final in the 500, also, only 2 would have made it in the 50, and 3 in the 200IM.
What are Up/Downs?
Dogg – “Up” is the number of swimmers in an A-Final, “Down” is the number of swimmers in a B-Final. It’s a simple measure of teams’ relative scoring changes going into the finals sessions.