Utah vs. California (Men)

BERKELEY, California, October 21. IN the first Pac-12 dual meet in school history, the California men's swimming and diving team (2-0) defeated conference newcomer Utah, 158-119, Friday (Oct. 21) afternoon at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The Golden Bears were led by senior Mathias Gydesen, who placed first in both the 100 and 200 back with times of 48.76 and 1:46.65, respectively. Gydesen also swam the butterfly leg of Cal's 200 medley relay that won the meet's opening event (1:29.11), joining junior Tom Shields, senior Martin Liivamagi and freshman Tyler Messerschmidt.
Other individual winners for the Bears, the 2011 NCAA team champions, included Shields in the 200 fly (1:49.12), Liivamagi in the 100 breast (55.44) and Messerschmidt in the 100 free (44.87). Junior Nick Trowbridge placed first in the 200 free (1:40.11), while sophomore Jeremy Bagshaw won the 1000 free (9:26.30) and sophomore Shayne Fleming captured the 50 free (20.43).

After winning the first nine swimming events, Cal swam the rest of the meet's events as exhibitions.

In diving, Bear sophomore Tyler Pullen placed first on the one-meter board with a score of 308.93, followed by freshman teammate Thomas Selby with a mark of 299.85. Selby was second on the three-meter board as well, recording a score of 3:13.28.

"I think Mathias' (Gydesen) swims were really good today," said Cal coach David Durden. "He was able to put into action some of the things he had been doing in practice and work through some different aspects of his racing. I was also pleased with the way the entire team performed throughout the course of the day. I thought our relays were good, and our guys who competed in multiple events held up well until the end, which is something we like to see."

The Cal swimmers will next host an exhibition triple-distance meet versus Bay Area rival Stanford on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The Bear divers next compete Nov. 4-5 at the USC Diving Invitational in Los Angeles.

Last March in Minneapolis, Durden guided the Bears to their first NCAA team title since 1980 and was named both National and Pac-10 Coach of the Year for the second year in a row. In his spectacular fourth year at Cal, Durden led his 2010-11 squad to a 4-1 (3-1 in the Pac-10) dual-meet record and a second-place finish in the conference meet before bringing the program its first national championship in 31 years with a dominating 493 to 470.5 point victory over second place Texas in the team standings.

At the 2011 NCAA meet, Durden's squad collected seven titles – the 50 and 100 frees (senior Nathan Adrian), the 100 back (sophomore Tom Shields), the 100 breast (senior Damir Dugonjic), the 400 free relay (Graeme Moore, Josh Daniels, Shields and Adrian), the 200 medley relay (Guy Barnea, Dugonjic, Moore and Adrian) and the 400 medley relay (Barnea, Dugonjic, Shields and Adrian).

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.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use