NCAA Men’s Championships: Cal Takes 400 Medley Relay Victory From Early Heat to Propel Bears Into First Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cal men were far from favorites in the 400 medley relay at the NCAA Championships. The Golden Bears were seeded 10th entering the meet, so they would not even race head-to-head with their closest competition. But the Cal group of Destin Lasco<\/strong>, Reece Whitley<\/strong>, Trenton Julian<\/strong>\u00a0and Bjorn Seeliger<\/strong>\u00a0took care of their business from heat three, posting a time of 3:00.36, and no team managed to surpass that in the final heat.<\/p>\n

Lasco was just off his time from the individual 100 back on the leadoff leg with his 44.64, and Whitley delivered a 50.64 split that was second-best in the field. Julian is better known for his abilities in the 200 fly, but he held his ground with a 44.44 fly split. Seeliger then went out in 18.95 to the feat on his anchor split, and his 40.64 split was enough to help Cal finish four tenths ahead of runnerup Indiana.<\/p>\n

“Momentum is everything in this meet,” Whitley said after the race. “It\u2019s probably one of the fastest meets on paper ever, and that\u2019s in large part due to everybody. Every point counts, and our message this week is, \u2018Be scrappy.\u2019 None of us were fresh tonight, and we were talking before, \u2018Just get it done.\u2019”<\/p>\n

The Hoosiers’ team of\u00a0Brendan Burns<\/strong>,\u00a0Josh Matheny<\/strong>, Tomer Frankel<\/strong> and\u00a0Rafael Miroslaw<\/strong> won the final heat in 3:00.76, but that left the Hoosiers in second place overall. Florida’s Adam Chaney<\/strong>,\u00a0Dillon Hillis<\/strong>,\u00a0Eric Friese<\/strong> and\u00a0Kieran Smith<\/strong> placed third in 3:01.00, with Smith anchoring in 40.96.<\/p>\n

Texas had the lead at the halfway point off an impressive 50.10 breaststroke split from\u00a0Caspar Corbeau<\/strong>, but they were unable to hold that pace over the back half. The Longhorns inserted\u00a0Zac Van Zandt<\/strong> on the butterfly leg instead of\u00a0Alvin Jiang<\/strong>, but Van Zandt and anchor\u00a0Danny Krueger\u00a0<\/strong>slipped to third in the final heat and fourth overall with a time of 3:01.22. NC State, buoyed by a 44.33 leadoff leg from\u00a0Kacper Stokowski<\/strong> and a 43.88 fly leg from\u00a0Nyls Korstanje<\/strong>, ended up fifth in 3:01.53.<\/p>\n

Winning out of an earlier heat, the Bears admitted, felt weird. Instead of celebrating the championship moment right away, the headed for the warm-down pool to focus on preparing for the final day of the meet. “I was trying not to watch tonight, keep my warm-down quick and get through that before the podium,” Julian said. “Seeing the finish, I didn\u2019t know how to react, being in the warm-down pool and trying to take care of my process, try to be in the moment but also keep perspective for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

Every NCAA Championships is full of momentum swings as teams alternate between moments of triumph and moments of frustration, but the Bears have mostly avoided those pitfalls at this meet, which the swimmers credited to head coach\u00a0Dave Durden’s\u00a0<\/strong>focus on being even-keeled and focusing their intensity for the moments when performance are paramount.<\/p>\n

“Dave puts this really well: ‘This morning session is one hour only, and that\u2019s where the ups and downs happen.’ What he asks from us is one hour a day of performance, and the night is fun,” Seeliger said. “You are supposed to show up for that hour and then we kind of back off and watch a show when we\u2019re back at the hotel. Some of us even do school. A little bit. Just get your mind off swimming so we can have that intensity coming into each session.”<\/p>\n

The win by Cal propelled the Bears into the lead in the team competition for the first time all week. Cal ended the night with 320.5 points, 7.5 ahead of Texas (313), while Florida sits in third (272). Cal is projected as the top-scoring team by far on the final day of competition, with a projected total of 162 points that surpasses any other team’s projection by 50. The relay win just lessens the already-dwindling chances of any team catching up to Cal’s lead.<\/p>\n

But even with everything going Cal’s way so far this week, the swimmers were adamant that they still had to come in and perform in Saturday’s prelims. Those 162 projected points mean nothing without the races, and attention was directed to the task at hand, even as Whitley and Julian sheepishly admitted that the relay win was the first NCAA title of both of their careers after numerous second and third-place finishes.<\/p>\n

“The meet is won tomorrow morning or lost tomorrow morning. Our guys back at the hotel know what they need to do. We\u2019ve been harping on it all week, and all we can do,” Whitley said. “Our job isn\u2019t finished. It\u2019s nice. We score points. It definitely feels good to represent the boys well, but me personally, I\u2019m more focused on tomorrow morning.”<\/p>\n