No. 3 Stanford, No. 5 California Compete in Triple-Distance Meet

STANFORD, California, November 8. THE No. 5-ranked California men's swimming team had an impressive performance in its Triple-Distance Meet at No. 3 Stanford Wednesday (Nov. 7) at Avery Aquatics Complex, capturing four of the six tri-distance events over the Cardinal. Senior Trevor Hoyt (breaststroke 3:21.96), junior Marcin Tarczynski (backstroke 2:58.28), junior Jeremy Bagshaw (distance freestyle 15:18.00) and freshman Josh Prenot (individual medley 6:34.99) each won their specialty groups.

In a Triple-Distance Meet, athletes divide into specialty groups and compete with one another in three races to determine a specialty champion in each of swimming's six event domains: sprinters (50, 100, 200 free), distance swimmers (200, 500, 1000 free), butterflyers (50, 100, 200 butterfly), breaststrokers (50, 100, 200 breaststroke), backstrokers (50, 100, 200 backstroke) and individual medlyists (100, 200, 400 IM).

The Golden Bears won the meet's final event as well, the 200 free relay, in an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 1:20.71 behind the swims of sophomore Fabio Gimondi, freshman Nick Dillinger, senior Ben Hinshaw and junior Shayne Fleming.

In individual races, Cal standout Hoyt, the 2012 national runner-up in the 200 breast, won all three of the breaststroke events Wednesday, swimming a 25.67 in the 50 breast, 55.35 in the 100 breast and 2:00.94 in the 200 breast. Other individual event winners for the Bears were Tarczynski, the 2012 NCAA champion in the 200 IM, in the 200 back (1:45.71); Bagshaw in the 500 (4:25.22) and 1000 free (9:11.74) and freshman standout Josh Prenot in the 200 (1:49.99) and 400 IM (3:53.88).

The Bears next compete at the Georgia Invitational, Nov. 30-Dec. 2 in Athens, Ga. The official Pac-12 dual meet between Cal and Stanford is Saturday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. at Cal's Spieker Aquatics Complex.

The CSCCA National Rankings were also released today with Michigan ranked first, Florida second, Stanford third, Texas fourth and Cal fifth. The Bears, under the direction of David Durden, captured the 2011 and 2012 NCAA team titles after finishing as the national runner-up in 2010. Cal returns 13 members from their 2012 national championship squad, including last year's individual NCAA champs Tom Shields (100 fly and 100 back), Will Hamilton (200 fly) and Tarczynski (200 IM). Additionally, Cal returns five members from its two national champion relays (200 free and 400 medley) — Shields, Fleming, Gimondi, sophomore Seth Stubblefield and sophomore Tyler Messerschmidt — for the upcoming campaign.

A refreshing midweek triple-distance men's swimming meet between Stanford and Cal provided a bit of everything for racing enthusiasts Wednesday at the Avery Aquatic Center.

While there was no overall team score for the event, the Cardinal and Golden Bears split the six individual events and a pair of relays on the day.

Typically held the week of the Big Game between the two school's football programs, the competition did not lack any elements of the long-standing rivalry. Stanford and Cal will go head-to-head later this season in a dual meet on Feb. 23 at the Golden Bears' Spieker Aquatics Complex.

“We had some things we wanted to focus on today and we wanted to swim fast while having fun,” Goldman Family Director of Men' Swimming Ted Knapp said. “That's exactly what this triple-distance meet did for us. It's a very honest format.

“We got exactly what we wanted out of this meet. For the most part, everyone had four great races. There was no real strategy today except for racing hard. It was like a quality workout. All in all, it was a great opportunity for us to race at a very high level on short rest.”

Because of the non-standard event schedule, the meet did not count towards either team's dual meet record.

The swimmers were divided into specialty groups and competed against one another in three races to determine a winner in each of swimming's six event domains: sprint (50, 100, 50 free), distance (200, 500, 1,000 free), fly (50, 100, 200), breast (50, 100, 200), back (50, 100, 200) and individual medley (100, 200, 400). The winners were recognized in each domain as the swimmer with the fast cumulative times from the three events.

The meet was sandwiched between last week's 184-104 handling of Wisconsin and served as a final tuneup for the upcoming Arena Invitational (Nov. 15-17) held in Long Beach, Calif. Stanford will send its divers to Tucson, Ariz., for the Arizona Diving Invite (Nov. 16-17).

“The Wisconsin meet was great for us,” Knapp said. “They like to race fast when they travel. We saw that, and our guys stepped up and did a great job.”

Jack Lane (2:59.95) won the fly portion with Chris Pickard (3:01.79) claiming the same honor in the fly.

Cal's Marcin Tarczynski (2:58.28) was the back champion with Matthew Swanston (2:58.70) taking second.

Trevor Hoyt (3:21.96) won the breast portion for Cal in front of Mason Shaw (3:25.07) and Sebastian Wigstrom (3:31.17).

Sprinter Aaron Wayne (2:44.60) led a trio of Cardinal freestylers to the top of the 50-100-200 standings. Andrew Saeta (2:45.29) was behind Wayne and less than a half second ahead of Sean Duggan (2:45.51).

Josh Prenot (6:34.99) won the IM portion for the Golden Bears as Gary Umbach (6:37.92) and Matt Thompson (6:40.13) were close behind.

Jeremy Bagshaw (15:18.00) won the 200-500-1,000 free. Stanford's highest finishers were third-place Drew Cosgarea (15:30.59) and fourth-place Danny Thompson (15:36.79).

Stanford won the 200 medley relay in 1:29.28 while finishing second in the 200 free relay (1:21.65).

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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