Stanford Takes Early Lead at Pac-12 Men’s Championships With Diving 1-2

Men’s Pac-12 Championships

• Wednesday, March 2- Saturday, March 5, 2022
• Swimming: Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center- Federal Way, WA
• Diving: University of Arizona
• Defending Champion: Cal (4x)
• Diving Results

While the Pac-12 Women’s Swimming Championships are underway in Federal Way, Washington, both the men’s and women’s diving championships are being held simultaneously at a separate site this season.

The University of Arizona is hosting the conference’s best divers, and the first men’s swimming & diving championship points were awarded on Thursday in the 1-meter springboard event.

There, Stanford’s Conor Casey and Jack Ryan finished 1-2 with scores of 375.05 and 367.30, respectively. USC’s Shangfei Wang placed 3rd, about three points behind Ryan.

That is a second-straight title for the senior Casey, while Ryan is a freshman.

Stanford has four divers entered in the meet, and all but Ethan Foster (who placed 9th) made the finals.

Stanford has 4 divers entered, USC has 3 divers entered, Arizona has 3 divers entered, and Utah has 4 divers entered. Even Arizona State, who a year ago completely wiped out their diving program, has two entered.

The only of the six Pac-12 teams that does not have any divers entered in the meet are the four-time defending champions Cal.

Like the women’s team the Cal men have not entered any divers at Pac-12s. The program is currently being led by an interim coach, Murphy Bromberg, after the team’s new diving coach Oleg Andriyuk resigned for “health reasons” barely after the season began.

That means Cal will go into the swimming portion of the meet with a big deficit to make up against Stanford, their primary challengers for the title.

Last year, Cal was 85 points behind Stanford after diving, but still managed to claw back and win the meet by 182 points. But after Stanford beat the Bears by 12 points in a dual meet two weeks ago, the Cardinal confidence will be high and wanting to prove that they are a dramatically-improved team.

With what should be a 100+ point advantage after diving, they’ll have the chance to prove that next week when swimming kicks off in Federal Way.