Futures & CIF State Championship Finalist Lucas Crother-Collado Commits to Cal Poly (2024)

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Remaining in state, California and Los Angeles native Lucas Crother-Collado will travel north up the coast this fall to attend California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo.

I am very excited to announce my verbal commitment to swim for and attend school at Cal Poly SLO.  I am grateful to all my family friends and coaches who have helped get here.

Crother-Collado just wrapped up his high school career at El Segundo High School. At last April’s CIF Southern Sectional Division 1 Championship meet, he helped his school to a top-5 finish. He opened up his meet by qualifying 3rd into the finals of the 50 free with a PB of 20.74 and 2nd into the finals of the 100 free with a PB of 44.67. In the shorter of the two sprints, Crother-Collado dropped from 3rd to 4th, but walked away with a new personal best of 20.52. While in the 100 he finished runner-up in 44.68. He also led off the school’s 5th place 200 Free Relay team (1:23.96) and their 6th place 400 Free Relay team (3:05.72), splitting 20.68 and 45.18, respectively.

The following weekend, at the CIF State Championship, the senior finalled in both the 50 and 100 again. In the 50, he hit another PB, swimming 20.51 to finish 10th in the A-final, whereas in the 100, he was 44.76 to finish 9th, scoring 22 of his school’s 48 points as El Segundo High School finished in 18th place.

In addition to swimming for his high school, Crother-Collado competes for Alpha Aquatics, which is based out of Culver City, California, and gained some name recognition at the U.S. Olympic Trials as the team of semifinalist Gabby Rose.

Representing Alpha at the Futures meet in Sacramento, Crother-Collado continued his assault on his list of personal bests. Recording three new PBs, he broke 52 in the 100 free lcm for the first time as he split 51.98 leading off the 400 free relay, which, along with Lucas Hubbard (53.19), Jack O’Shaughnessy (52.69) and Miles Blackson-Dunbar (51.11) finished 4th overall in 3:28.97. He also lowered his PB in the 50 free to 23.73, courtesy of his 8th place finish, and in the 200 free prelims, he recorded a new best of 1:56.36.

Best SCY Times

• 50 Free – 20.51
• 100 Free- 44.67
• 200 Free – 1:41.48
• 100 Fly – 49.81

Cal Poly is a Division 1 program that competes in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for swimming. Under the guidance of interim head coach Tom Milich (who was the head coach for 14 seasons), they finished fourth in the most recent championships, scoring 471 points, just two back of Incarnate Word.

Crother-Collado’s personal best would be an instant help to the Mustangs, as they failed to have a scoring finalist in either the 50 or 100. His 20.51 would have qualified him in 16th for the B-final of the 50 free, and his 100 free PB of 44.67 would have been 13th in prelims. His likely 3rd event, either the 200 free or 100 fly, are both out of scoring position but would slot into the non-scoring C-final.

Crother-Collado will overlap with Cal-Poly’s best sprinters for a few years and they may be able to improve upon their 6th place finish in the 200 free relay. Three-quarters of that relay return was led by Drew Huston (19.79 flying start), who, last year, as a sophomore, won the 200 back and was runner-up in the 100 back.

This year Cal-Poly is undergoing some changes as they have hired co-head coaches Traci Granger and Kim Foster Carlson to run the combined program.  Joining Crother-Collado this fall on campus are Krishna Clarke, a Breast/IMer from New Mexico, and backstroker Sam Seybold, who hails from Danville, California.

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