Cordes, Murphy, Quintero All Take Top Seeds on Day 3 Prelims at 2014 Pac 12 Championsihps

The 3rd day of the 2014 Pac 12 men’s swimming championships (diving was last week) features the meet’s biggest names heavily, including a pair of swimmers trying to defend their NCAA titles from last year: Stanford’s David Nolan in the 100 back, plus Arizona’s Kevin Cordes in the 100 breast. Nolan will be challenged by Cal freshman Ryan Murphy, who took the top seed in prelims, and Cordes it appears will continue to swim by himself.

Along with those races will be the 100 fly with Giles Smith, the 200 free, and the 400 IM.

In finals, the 400 medley relay will be added to the schedule as well.

Stanford still holds a lead after two days thanks to a big diving performance, but with neither them or Cal seeded to have a huge day, either team is in a position to swim-past-seed and take control of this meet.

Day three Up/Downs can be seen here.
For scores through two days, see our day two finals recap here.

PAC-12 MEN

• Dates: Wednesday, March 5th – Saturday, March 8th; Prelims 11AM/Finals 6PM (Diving February 26th-March 1st with women’s Pac-12s)
• Location: Federal Way, WA  (Pacific Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: California (results)
• Live Results: Available
• Championship Central

Men’s 400 IM  – prelims

The Cal men made the first move on Friday morning, grabbing the top two seeds in the first event of the day: the 400 IM. Sophomore Josh Prenot sits first in 3:44.17, and his junior teammate Adam Hinshaw is second in 3:45.32.

But close behind them is Stanford freshman Max Williamson, who coming off of a very strong 200 IM on Thursday swam a lifetime best of 3:45.96 for the 3rd seed. He has the chance to push a lot of Cal points back if he continues to drop into finals, though at this point Prenot has to be viewed as the favorite.

Arizona’s Eric Solis sits 4th with a 3:46.93 and Sam Rowan is 5th in 3:47.01. That gives Arizona big scoring potential in this A-final tonight, but they lost some firepower when Michael Meyer, who entered as the top seed, slid out of the A-final and sits 11th with a 3:50.48. Arizona, as a whole, has swum as well at a Pac-12 Championship meet as we’ve seen them, but Meyer and a handful of others who are already locked up for NCAA invites seem to have stuck to the more historical pattern of training right through this meet.

Utah’s Kristian Kron sits 6th in 3:47.12, followed by USC’s Cary Wright (3:48.23) and Stanford’s Drew Cosgarea (3:49.00). Cosgarea, who in the 500 free on Thursday dropped big between prelims and finals, is another big chance for Stanford to move up in this race.

Up/Downs for this race

Ups are ‘A’ finalists, Downs are ‘B’ finalists. These are the two scoring finalis at this particular championship.

Stanford – 2 up/3 down
Cal – 2 up
USC – 1 up/1 down
Arizona – 2 up/1 down
Arizona St. – none
Utah – 1 up/1 down
UCSB – 1 down
Cal Poly – 1 down

 Men’s 100 Fly – prelims

Cal’s Tony Cox has been on fire so far this week, and he threw caution to the wind on the front-half of his 100 fly/100 back double, taking the top seed in the butterfly in 45.94. That cuts two seconds off of his previous season-best in the event.

Arizona’s Giles Smith is 2nd in 46.37, and USC’s Maclin Davis was 3rd in 46.39. Those two were both almost even with Cox halfway, though they pulled back a little in finals. All three are well capable of sub-46 three weeks out of NCAA’s, so watch for what should be a wild final.

In fact, the entirety of the A-final was separated by just .9 seconds in prelims, which comes out to just under a body-length.

That includes Arizona State’s Alex Coci, who is the 4th seed in 46.58, who is his team’s first A-finalist in an individual swimming event at the meet.

Just behind him in the morning was Cal senior Marcin Tarczynski (46.59) and Cal junior Seth Stubblefield (46.66). Two freshmen round out the A-final: Stanford’s Connor Black (46.69) and Cal’s Ryan Murphy (46.85).

That made four Cal swimmers in the A-final; even with the graduation of Tom Shields, who’s won this title in three of the last four years, Cal’s btterfly group is still very deep.

Up/Downs for this event

Stanford – 1 up/1 down
Cal – 4 up
USC – 1 up/3 down
Arizona – 1 up/3 down
Arizona St. – 1 up
Utah – 1 down
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – none

Men’s 200 Free – prelims

The USC men, after a dominant performance in the 800 free relay, not surprisingly looked very good in the men’s individual 200 freestyle as well, with four swimmers making their way into the A-final.

That includes Cristian Quintero, the top seed in 1:34.63, and Dimitri Colupaev, the 3rd seed, in 1:34.76. Those two are the key to this whole USC team clicking, and in prelims on Friday, they did their job.

In between them in the seeds in the second position is Cal sophomore Trent Williams, who was a 1:34.68. His teammate Long Gutierrez sits 4th in 1:35.04, tied with USC’s Reed Malone. Both swimmers are freshmen.

Arizona’s Matt Barber is 6th in 1:35.29, followed by USC’s Chad Bobrowky (1:35.47) and Stanford’s Thomas Stephens (1:35.53).

Utah’s Nick Soedel just missed the A-final, going 1:35.61 to sit 9th after prelims. He was much faster, even including the relay start, in the relay, so he should be the favorite to win that B-final (though Tom Kremer from Stanford is just behind in 1:35.72).

Up/Downs from this race:

Stanford – 1 up/2 down
Cal – 2 up/2 down
USC – 4 up
Arizona – 1 up/1 down
Arizona St. – 1 down
Utah – 2 down
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – none

Men’s 100 Breaststroke – prelims

There were a ton of things that jumped out at us in this men’s 100 breaststroke preliminary round, but we’ll start by rewinding all the way to the first heat. The no-time seeded South African junior Brad Tandy put up an early 53.06 to stun the fan base. Tandy is currently the fastest 50 freestyler in NCAA swimming this season. He’s been a solid breaststroker in the past, and his 52.8 from the Texas Invite mid-season went under the radar because he was swimming as an exhibition racer, so this swim caught a lot of folks off-guard.

That’s just one more piece into the seemingly endless line of Arizona male breaststrokers in the last few years. Tandy’s teammate Kevin Cordes, the NCAA Record holder in the event, was a 51.86 for the top seed in prelims. He was followed by Cal mid-season transfer Chuck Katis, who was very-near his lifetime best with a 52.89 for the 2nd seed.

Things continued to get interesting, as USC’s Andrew Malone was a 53.22, which is his lifetime best by a full second and his season best by two-and-a-half. He was just ahead of teammate Sergio Lujan-Rivera (53.24), and might challenge for the spot on USC’s A medley relay after that performance.

Stanford’s Mason Shaw will be the lone Cardinal representative in the A-final, followed by USC’s Morten Klarskov and Cal’s Ryan Studebaker.

There was a three-way tie for 9th, just narrowly missing what would be a huge swim-off, between Utah’s Ken Tiltges, Arizona’s Andrew Sovero, and Cal Poly’s Mackey Hopen. All three went 53.94’s.

Then there were three swimmers who slid from expectations. Arizona’s Kevin Steel, who was the NCAA runner-up last season in this event, was juts 12th in prelims with a 54.12. Then again, that’s significantly faster than he was at Pac-12’s last year, so maybe it’s not much of a surprise, as he’s a big-time taper swimmer.

Also in this event were two swimmers who were a part of that high school meet last year that had three under the old National High School Record. Neither of them was close to those performances in prelims – Steven Stumph, now a freshman at USC, was a 55.09, and Charlie Wiser, now a freshman at Stanford, went 56.21. Wiser did spend the first half of the season on Stanford’s water polo team.

Up/Downs from this race:

Stanford – 1 up/1 down
Cal – 2 up
USC – 3 up/1 down
Arizona – 2 up/2 down
Arizona St. – 1 down
Utah – 1 down
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – 2 down

Men’s 100 Back – prelims

Whereas Cal’s Tony Cox handled the front end of the fly/back double very well, his freshman teammate Ryan Murphy handled the back end equally as well, going a 46.21 for the top seed. He was just ahead of Stanford’s David Nolan, who is the defending NCAA Champion, and Cox, who was a 46.55 for the 3rd seed.

Perhaps in anticipation of this double, Cox swam a time trial in the 100 back earlier in the meet that was faster than all of these times.

A third Cal Bear, Jacob Pebley, placed in the top four with a 46.85, as Cal will look to crack open the meet in this event tonight.

USC’s Dylan Carter is the 5th seed in 46.91, one of three freshmen in the A-final along with Cal’s Sven Campbell (47.18) the 8th seed.

Arizona’s Mitch Friedemann (47.03) and Stanford’s Ryan Arata (47.14) are the 6th-and-7th seeds, respectively.

Another freshman, Arizona State’s Richard Bohus, was 9th in 47.58, and Cal sprinter Tyler Messerschmidt is 10th in 47.85.

Up/Downs for this event:

Stanford – 2 up/1 down
Cal – 4 up/1 down
USC – 1 up/2 down
Arizona – 1 up/3 down
Arizona St. – 1 down
Utah – none
UCSB – none
Cal Poly – none