You are working on Staging1

Cal’s Gutierrez Scratches 100 Fly Final, Teammate Lynch Now In

2016 MEN’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

California’s Long Gutierrez has scratched out of the B final of tonight’s 100 fly, bumping his teammate Justin Lynch into the consols.

Gutierrez was 13th this morning in 45.99, just off his seed time of 45.80. He bows out, meaning the swim-off between Lynch and Auburn’s Arthur Mendes for 17th now has meaning in the team points battle. Lynch won that swim-off 45.65 to 45.90, becoming the first alternate and eventually the last B finalist after Guterrez’s scratch.

Though Gutierrez was faster than Lynch in prelims this morning, the move seems to make sense since Gutierrez is taking on the brutal 100 fly/200 free double today. He made the B final of both events – which fall back to back on the schedule – this morning, but he did gain about eight tenths of a second in the 200 while taking 14th.

Once Lynch won his swim-off, scratching Gutierrez would lose Cal his B final points but would add Lynch to the mix in the B final. That allows Cal to keep Gutierrez fresher for his 200 free while not forfeiting a scoring spot in the 100 fly.

Lynch will also likely swim the fly leg of the 200 medley relay at the end of the night, but that double comes with plenty of rest and didn’t seem to bother the Golden Bear sophomore much this morning as he was 20.3 on the relay with a relatively safe start.

You can check out the full finals heat sheets here.

In This Story

3
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

3 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
iLikePsych
8 years ago

Was Cal able to scratch Gutierrez after Lynch won the swim-off? Because if not, it could have come with some risk, and would be an interesting coaching move.

Admin
Reply to  iLikePsych
8 years ago

Scratch came first.

Chris
8 years ago

Smart play all around for Cal.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

Read More »