{"id":501159,"date":"2022-03-25T08:38:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T15:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=501159"},"modified":"2022-03-25T09:29:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T16:29:58","slug":"ncaa-mens-championships-brendan-burns-grabs-top-seed-in-tight-100-backstroke-heats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-mens-championships-brendan-burns-grabs-top-seed-in-tight-100-backstroke-heats\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Men’s Championships: Brendan Burns Grabs Top Seed in Tight 100 Backstroke Heats"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Men’s Championships: Brendan Burns Grabs Top Seed in Tight 100 Backstroke Heats<\/strong><\/p>\n

The unprecedented depth of this year’s NCAA Men’s Championships has been on display in nearly ever event contested thus far, and the same pattern emerged in the 100 backstroke as 12 men broke 45 in prelims, a huge jump from just seven last season. Coming out on top in the early round was Indiana’s\u00a0Brendan Burns<\/strong>, who clocked a time of 44.36 to edge\u00a0Adam Chaney<\/strong> of Florida (44.39) by three hundredths. Burns will be competing in two individual events Friday evening after he placed ninth in the 100 fly heats earlier in the session.<\/p>\n

Two days after Cal’s\u00a0Bjorn Seeliger<\/strong>, NC State’s\u00a0Kacper Stokowski<\/strong> and Chaney swam the three fastest 200 medley relay leadoffs in history, all three swimmers qualified for the 100 back final. Following Chaney in the standings was Stokowski at 44.44, while Seeliger’s 44.58 was good for seventh place, even though he was just 0.22 slower than the top seed in prelims.<\/p>\n

Cal’s Destin Lasco\u00a0<\/strong>(44.48) and Louisville’s Nick Albiero\u00a0<\/strong>(44.54) placed fourth and fifth, respectively, while\u00a0Harvard’s\u00a0Dean Farris<\/strong> returned to a championship final at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2019 as he qualified sixth in 44.55. Farris was the 2019 NCAA champion in the 100 back and 100 free, and his best time of 43.66 ranks him third all-time behind only Ryan Murphy<\/strong> and\u00a0Coleman Stewart<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ohio State’s\u00a0Hunter Armstrong<\/strong>, who captured a surprising spot at the Tokyo Olympics by finishing second to Murphy in the 100-meter back at last year’s Olympic Trials, finished eighth in 44.72 to find his way into the first NCAA final of his career.<\/p>\n

Stanford’s\u00a0Leon MacAlister<\/strong>, Indiana’s\u00a0Gabriel Fantoni<\/strong>, Cal’s\u00a0Daniel Carr<\/strong> and Virginia’s\u00a0Matthew Menke<\/strong> all had sub-45 performances but found themselves in the B-final, while Virginia Tech’s\u00a0Forrest Webb<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and Auburn’s\u00a0Aidan Stoffle<\/strong> tied for 16th at 45.36, setting up a swim-off for the last scoring position However, that swim-off was called off after Texas’\u00a0Alvin Jiang<\/strong>, who was 14th in prelims, scratched the consolation final to focus on the 100 fly and 400 medley relay in the finals session.<\/p>\n