Stanford Captures 26th Straight Pac-10 Title

FEDERAL WAY, Washington, February 24. THE No. 2 Stanford Cardinal captured its 26th consecutive Pac-10 Championship Saturday night with 990.5 team points, while posting a total of six individual champions, four relay titles and 18 NCAA automatic qualifying times.

"There is not enough words to describe winning this meet for so many years," Stanford's head swimming coach Skip Kenney said. "But the reality of it all is that this is a dress rehearsal for NCAAs, and we met a lot of our goals here. I'm pleased with where we are right now and I'm looking forward to seeing what we will do in a few weeks. Now we are going to rest, pace, rest and pace some more before we go to the big meet."

Senior Ben-Wildman-Tobriner was honored as the Pac-10 Swimmer of the Meet, as he contributed to his team's first place finish by posting three individual titles over the course of three days.

"Personally, I pretty much achieved what I wanted at this meet," Wildman-Tobriner said. "I think that I swam pretty well and I feel prepared for NCAAs in few weeks, which is why we come to this meet. We just have to keep doing what we have been doing up until now and improve the mistakes that we uncovered while at this meet. The goal is to get the team molded so we can put it all together and fire as one at NCAAs."

Cal finished second for the sixth consecutive year with 657 points, while Arizona finished 32 points behind the Golden Bears in third place (625). USC finished fourth with 511.5 points, as ASU placed fifth 372 points and Washington finished sixth (222).

Beginning tonight's action was the 1650 free, as USC's senior Larsen Jensen tallied his second individual title of the meet, finishing first with an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 14:41.80. Stanford's senior Shaun Phillips also posted an NCAA automatic qualifying time in the event (14:55.10) finishing second overall, while ASU's junior CJ Nuess finished third (15:09.34).

In the 200 back, senior Hongzhe Sun of Stanford defended his title for the third consecutive year with an automatic qualifying time of 1:41.64. Cal's junior Mark Eckert finished second with a time of 1:43.72 and Stanford's senior Andy Grant finished third (1:44.54).

Stanford dominated the top two spots of the 100 free, as Wildman-Tobriner captured the title with a time of 42.59 and classmate Matt Crowe finished second with a time of 43.03. Arizona finished third and fourth in the event, as sophomore Nicolas Nilo posted an automatic qualifying time of 43.07 and teammate Adam Ritter touched the wall at 43.48.

Stanford took their third title of the evening in the 200 breast, as sophomore Paul Kornfeld tallied his second victory with a time of 1:55.54. Stanford's sophomore David Ash finished second with a time of 1:56.28 and Arizona's junior Bart Steninger posted the first automatic qualifying time of his collegiate career, finishing third overall (1:56.40).

In the 200 fly, Cal's senior Patrick O'Neil won with a time of 1:45.00, while USC's senior Viktor Bodrogi finished second (1:45.46) and teammate Brandon Lovell finished third (1:46.02).

Wrapping up the meet was Stanford's 400 free relay comprised of Wildman-Tobriner, Crowe, sophomore Jason Dunford and Grant, finishing first with an automatic qualifying time of 2:51.50. Cal finished second in the relay with a time of 2:51.97 and Arizona finished third (2:52.85).

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

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

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x