Brad Zdroik Swims 45.9 in C-Final Exhibition at Pac-12s

2017 MEN’S PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, March 1-Saturday March 4
• Federal Way, WA (Pacific Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Stanford (results)
• Psych sheets
• Live results
• Live Video
• Pac-12 Record Book
• Championship Central

Stanford sophomore Brad Zdroik snuck in a 45.91 in the 100 yard fly on Friday, night 3 of the 2017 Pac-12 Men’s Swimming Championships. That swim moves him to 18th in the country and was the 7th-fastest time of the finals session.

What makes this swim so noteworthy is the fact that Zdroik is not on Stanford’s scoring roster, and therefore his result came up in the C-Final, earned him no official placement, and earned him no official points.

It will, however, earn him an invite to the NCAA Championship meet in March.

The Pac-12 is one of the few conferences in the NCAA’s Division I that allows swimmers who are not on teams’ scoring rosters to race anyway, though in evening finals they are relegated beneath official scoring swimmers. The Pac-12 is also one of the few conferences in the country that has teams deep enough where a swimmer, with a particularly well-struck taper, can earn their way to the NCAA Championships anyway.

And that’s just what Zdroik has done on Friday evening.

His meet started with a 20.57 on an exhibitioned 200 medley relay, a 20.08 flat-start in the 50 free prelims, and a 19.61 200 free relay split.

After swimming a 20.32 in the 50 free coming out of high school, Zdroik failed to improve in the event (or the 100 fly) in his rookie year at Stanford. He showed a mid-season spark in December of 2016, though, with best times in both the 50 free and 100 fly – the latter of which was a 47.01.

On Friday, he fulfilled that foreshadowing with a swim that went under the radar in a C-Final that was without points was ultimately not pointless.