2014 WOMEN’S PACIFIC-12 (PAC-12) CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS FAN GUIDE
- Dates: Wednesday February 26th – Saturday March 1st; Prelims at 11AM, Finals 6PM
- Location: Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center (Pacific Time Zone)
- Defending Champion: Stanford (Results.)
- Live Results: Available.
- Live Video (If available): Not at the moment
- Championship Central (sort of)
The meat of the 2014 Pac-12 Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships got underway on this morning in Federal Way, Washington with the women’s 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and 3-meter springboard diving events. The finals of those events will be contested tonight, in addition to the 200 freestyle relay.
This meet didn’t really have a clear tone in the first two sessions like some of the other meets this weekend (Big Ten, ACC), and so we’ll look for that in tonight’s finals. Partially, that’s been because of how balanced this meet was on the first night, and was again on Thursday in the early session.
Cal and Stanford are tied as of last night at 120 points for first. USC is in third at 108 points.
500 Freestyle
Missy Franklin was the winner here tonight, finishing well ahead of the field at 4:35.73. That is a new PAC-12 Meet Record, but just off the 4:34.48 PAC-12 Record. Missy cut nearly seven seconds from her time this morning, and is just off her 4:34.63 performance from earlier this season.
Her teammate Melanie Klaren was sixth, 4:42.09.
Bonnie Brandon was second for Arizona at 4:38.45. Chelsea Chenault making her freshman debut in the PAC-12 for USC was third, 4:39.30.
Oregon State’s Samantha Harrison made a big drop today, seeded at 4:46, dropped at the way down to 4:40.30 after tonight. That will definitely secure her a spot at NCAAs in March.
Tristin Baxter was fifth at 4:41.95 for the Sundevils. Sami Zuch was seventh of the Utes, 4:44.75.
200 IM
Maya DiRado won her first 200 IM Pac-12 title tonight, fourth individual overall, in a time of 1:54.67. She just edged out freshman Celina Li of Cal, who was a close second at 1:54.89. Cal also captured the third spot with Liz Pelton finishing at 1:55.65.
Stina Gardell was fourth for Southern California at 1:55.71. All four of these women have been marginally faster earlier this season, so I expect some even better swims in the next month at NCAAs.
USC had the fifth spot with Jasmine Tosky’s 1:56.39 – much better fit for her after swimming the 500 freestyle at last years PAC-12s. DiRado had teammate Felicia Lee in the final as well; Lee was sixth, 1:57.00.
In addition to the 2-3 finish from Cal, they also nabbed 7-8 from Kelly Naze, 1:57.52, and Caroline Piehl, 1:58.38.
50 Freestyle
Kasey Carlson is poised to have a great final season at Southern California. She made yet another statement winning the 50 tonight, over Arizona’s Margo Geer, the defending NCAA Champion in the event.
Carlson finished in 21.74, a personal best and new team record for SC. Katarzyna Wilk, Carlson’s teammate, was sixth, at 22.33. Geer was second at 21.90; Geer has been 21.78 this season already.
Stanford’s sprinter Maddy Schaefer rounded out the podium in 22.10 for third. Her Olympian teammate Lia Neal was fifth, 22.25.
Farida Osman from Cal dropped a 22.11 for fourth. Linnea Mack, UCLA, and Traycie Swartz, Utah, rounded out the heat with final times of 22.34 and 22.39.
200 Freestyle Relay
In a big change of momentum, the Cal Bears were DQ’ed in the 200 freestyle relay. Initially they came up as the winners in the event (1:27.71), but time passed and they were disqualified on meet mobile.
That moved the Arizona Wildcats into first place. This was the first relay for Arizona to even get onto the podium. Brandon, 22.50, Geer, 21.32, Alana Pazevic, 22.05, and Gracie Finnegan, 21.89, teamed up to win in a final time of 1:27.76. That was just shy of the 1:27.47 PAC-12 Meet Record from Arizona in 2009.
The Trojans were second with Carlson, 21.93, Wilk, 22.02, Kendyl Stewart, 22.18, and Evan Swensen, 21.90, finishing in 1:28.03. Stanford was third with Schaefer, 22.12, Neal, 21.87, Katie Olsen, 22.46, and Lee 21.62, in a total time of 1:28.07.
Outside those three teams, Linnea Mack on UCLA’s fourth place relay had a very good split of 21.85.
Diving
Stanford’s Stephanie Phipps won the 1m event today, and three more Cardinal made it into the top eight for valuable team points – 4th, 6th and 8th. Micah Bower from Arizona was second. USC’s Haley Ishimatsu was third, plus another Trojan finished fifth.
Scores
Before the relay, Stanford had a marginal lead on the Bears of about 50 points. And the Trojans were less than ten points away from the Bears in third. With the disqualification things have shaken up a bit. Stanford maintains the lead, with USC in second and Cal in third – all three beginning to distance themselves from one another, but definitely still within striking distance.
Another big development is UCLA in fourth over Arizona. That relay win was big for Arizona and now just 8 points separate the two teams in the standings.
Scores – From Meet Mobile
1. Stanford, 507
2. USC, 448
3. Cal, 400
4. UCLA, 328
5. Arizona, 320
6. Utah, 264
7. OSU, 158
8. WSU, 155
9. ASU, 150
off topic-but does anyone have any guesses how deep NCAA’s will go for the women’s cut off? Last year was 38 but the year before was 30. Big differences..
There was a rule change last year for NCAA qualification that resulted in the change in cut off, so expect the number to be at or around 38 again.
SERIOUSLY!?
Bing get’s DQ’d individually and then the relay get’s DQ’d all in an hours time?
on the bright side: i did NOT expect CAL to be close here. so the fact that they won this in the pool says a lot about how well they’re swimming here. without the DQ they’d only be about 40 points behind STAN. ugh.
Bing’s DQ was in the morning prelims, so both miscues didn’t happen within an hour. If Teri’s singular focus were on winning Pac-12s, she would have had Missy on the 200 free relay and Bing wouldn’t have led off. McKeever wanted to get Bing into the NCAA 50 free field after her morning DQ.
4.35 for an untapered Missy, it’s cool. No problem for her.
Pelton and Bootsma will swim much faster next month as well.
Very good race for Celina Li against Maya DiRado in the 200 IM.
At the opposite, Kristen Vredeveld struggles again in 22.80 in the 50 free. It’s incomprehensible..
The bad news for Cal is of course the disqualification but it’s better to have that problem this week rather than at NCAA’s.
The good news for Cal comes from 2 really good performances made in the relays with the 22.11 for Farida Osman (I repeat she has crazy natural speed and in my opinion she should be in all Cal 4X50 and 4X100 free… Read more »
Is that 1.78 reaction time by Bootsma correct? (Aside from the DQ, of so, that’d be stunning)
Also Bing’s RT is listed as +1.93??!
Stilnox strikes again.
Also Geer’s at +1.87. I assume the pad is just broken… so is the 21.3 real or not?
The splits are probably fine since they are recorded from the touchpads in the water. The relay exchange numbers are calculated from the touchpads and the pads on the blocks, which are flukey.
I’d bet even Bonnie would agree that competing against Missy so often has helped her improve tremendously. If she makes the Olympic team in 2016, she may have Missy partly to thank.
I kind of feel for Bonnie Brandon, who is a really good swimmer in her own right and seems to have never quite gotten on top of the podium as much as she should because so many times in her career, Missy Franklin just shows up in the lane next to her and does what Missy does.
I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not… Have you read the WSJ article about it?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324235104578241961511333962
It was featured on this website when it was published.
If a swimmer does not win a race, then they should not be atop the podium.
That said, I would not be surprised to see Bonnie give Missy all she can handle at NCAA’s, if she doesn’t beat her altogether.
sigh. poor anybody else who has to race against Missy. Maybe somebody just ask Missy what she is going to swim, give Cal those points and let somebody else have the title? And then when Katie goes to college the same thing can happen. . . . .
I agree, with ‘kind of’ being the operative modifier. I assume, without giving a free page-click to that rag, that the article goSharks linked is the one where the coach and his swimmers disgrace themselves in the national media complaining about Missy’s existence. I remember that Brandon was one of those swimmers. It might suck a little for her, but that wasn’t a good look. At all. And the blowback is everyone only ‘kind of’ feels bad for her. Which really means, they don’t. At all.
Yep.
Jeah, swimmers get bashed for going pro, and even get grief for not going pro.
Isn’t it Melanie Klaren not Melanie Zuch?