{"id":501155,"date":"2022-03-25T08:08:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T15:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=501155"},"modified":"2022-03-25T08:08:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T15:08:23","slug":"ncaa-mens-championships-drew-kibler-edges-matt-sates-in-200-free-prelims-132-00-for-eighth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-mens-championships-drew-kibler-edges-matt-sates-in-200-free-prelims-132-00-for-eighth\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Men’s Championships: Drew Kibler Edges Matt Sates in 200 Free Prelims; 1:32.00 for Eighth"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Men’s Championships: Drew Kibler Edges Matt Sates in 200 Free Prelims; 1:32.00 for Eighth<\/strong><\/p>\n

On opening night of the NCAA Championships, four of the top 200 freestylers in the country faced off on the leadoff leg of the 800 freestyle relay, and it was Texas’\u00a0Drew Kibler<\/strong> who finished just ahead of Georgia’s\u00a0Matt Sates<\/strong>,\u00a0Florida’s\u00a0Kieran Smith<\/strong> and Arizona State’s\u00a0Grant House<\/strong>. Two days later, all four of those men will feature heavily into the 200 freestyle final. In prelims, Kibler got the better of Sates once again, finishing on top in heat two by just two tenths.<\/p>\n

Kibler earned the top seed in 1:30.91, while Sates, the winner of the 500 freestyle Thursday night, placed second in 1:31.11. Kibler was the runnerup in this event last year behind Smith, and he ranks eighth fastest in history at 1:30.39, while Sates’ 800 free relay leadoff (1:30.78) moved him to No. 10 on the all-time list.<\/p>\n

House, who has the top time in the country this year at 1:30.23, qualified third in 1:31.63, followed by Cal’s\u00a0Trenton Julian\u00a0<\/strong>(1:31.71) and NC State’s\u00a0Luke Miller\u00a0<\/strong>(1:31.78).<\/p>\n

Smith will defend his title after he ended up sixth in prelims at 1:30.90, while Louisville’s\u00a0Murilo Sartori<\/strong> (1:31.99) and LSU’s\u00a0Brooks Curry<\/strong> (1:32.00) placed seventh and eighth, respectively. Curry, the winner of the 50 free national title Thursday, surged to the finish with a 23.60 final split, and he needed every ounce to touch out Missouri’s\u00a0Jack Dahlgren<\/strong> in his heat by one hundredth. That ended up being the difference between making the A-final and a spot in the consolation heat.<\/p>\n

Dahlgren settled for the top spot in the B-final, despite swimming a time that would have been good enough to win the NCAA title as recently as 2015. It took a 1:32.58 to qualify for the top heat, with Stanford’s\u00a0Luke Maurer\u00a0<\/strong>and Texas’\u00a0Coby Carrozza<\/strong> tying for that last spot. For the first time ever, a sub-1:33 performance was not enough to earn a second swim as four swimmers who recorded 1:32s in prelims were left out of the scoring entirely.<\/p>\n