Stanford Slotted to Out-Pace Cal on Day 2 Finals of Pac-12 Champs, UCLA to Rise

2021 PAC-12 WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, February 24 – Saturday, February 27
• Campus Rec & Wellness Center, University of Houston, Houston, TX
• Defending Champion: Stanford (4x) (2020 results)
• Live Video TBD
• Championship Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live results

DAY ONE SCORES

1. Arizona – 179
2. Cal – 172
3. Utah – 167
4. Stanford – 165
5. UCLA – 148
6. USC – 124
7. Washington State – 94

For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of three finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final and places 17 through 24 the C final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.

With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups,” “Mids” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, “Mid” to swimmers in the B final and “Down” to swimmers in the C final.

While the Cal Golden Bears have been dominant this season in the Pac-12, they haven’t yet made a big move at these Pac-12 Championships.

Instead, Cal and Stanford had virtually the same outings this morning, with Stanford putting up one more swimmer into an A-final than Cal, Cal getting one more B-finalist than Stanford, and the teams tying with four C-finalists apiece. That mirrors how the teams looked on the 1-meter last night; each had one diver in the A-, B- and C-finals.

After Arizona out-scored Stanford by ~20 and Cal by ~30 on the 1-meter, Stanford and Cal should both barrel past the Wildcats tonight. Cal and Stanford make up the entirety of the 500 free A-final tonight, with Stanford’s Brooke Forde (4:39.86) and Cal’s Robin Neumann (4:39.92) both cracking the 4:40 barrier, while Cal has top seeds Alicia Wilson (1:55.97) and Eloise Riley (22.09) in the 200 IM and 50 free, respectively.

With the swimmers in strong positions, Stanford and Cal need to worry about placements in each final; if you’re the top seed of a final, and you wind up dropping down to eighth, that’s bad news in terms of projection-to-reality scoring.

Meanwhile, UCLA is projected to move up with their prelims projections. These projections are based on individual swimming events, though, so Arizona and USC could counter with their 3-meter diving points and nullify the Bruins’ prelims efforts.

Washington State sprinter Chloe Larson gave the Cougars an A-finalist with a 22.16 in the 50 free prelims today, which is better than Utah and Arizona’s combined 0 A-finalists. Larson’s time this morning broke a WSU program record dating back to 2009, a 22.45 done by Rugile Mileisyte.

DAY 2 UPS/MIDS/DOWNS

Credit to Andrew Mering for running the numbers.

SCORING BREAKDOWN

SCORED PRELIMS

1. Stanford – 298
2. California – 285.5
3. USC – 147
4. UCLA – 143.5
5. Arizona – 106
6. Utah – 63
7. Washington State – 43

DAY 1 + SCORED PRELIMS

1. Stanford – 463
2. Cal – 457.5
3. UCLA – 291.5
4. Arizona – 285
5. USC – 271
6. Utah – 230
7. Washington State – 137