{"id":608858,"date":"2025-03-28T21:37:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T04:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=608858"},"modified":"2025-03-29T09:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T16:14:05","slug":"ncaa-mens-championships-florida-crushes-400-medley-relay-field-by-three-seconds-nc-state-claims-american-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-mens-championships-florida-crushes-400-medley-relay-field-by-three-seconds-nc-state-claims-american-record\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Men’s Championships: Florida Crushes 400 Medley Relay Field By Three Seconds; NC State Claims American Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Men’s Championships: Florida Crushes 400 Medley Relay Field By Three Seconds; NC State Claims American Record<\/strong><\/p>\n

A meet that began in disastrous fashion has stabilized, and the Florida Gators put on a huge performance Friday to jump from sixth to fourth in the team competition.\u00a0Josh Liendo<\/strong> grabbed his second consecutive national win in the 100 butterfly before Julian Smith<\/strong> backed up his 100 breaststroke NCAA record last month with a title here.\u00a0Jonny Marshall<\/strong> came within two hundredths of a third title in the 100 backstroke.<\/p>\n

Put those three swimmers together, and Florida was downright unstoppable in the 400 medley relay. Two days after a disqualification nullified the fastest 200 medley relay ever, Florida achieved the second-fastest time ever over double the distance, a mark of 2:56.10 behind only the NCAA and U.S. Open records established by an identical squad at last month’s SEC Championships.<\/p>\n

The Gators sat in second place after the opening 100 yards, with Marshall coming in at 43.87 to put his team a hundredth behind Georgia’s\u00a0Ruard Van Renen<\/strong>. On breaststroke, though, Florida took over as Smith crushed a 48.85 leg. The time was the second-fastest split in history, trailing only the 48.73 that Arizona State’s\u00a0Leon Marchand<\/strong> posted in 2024. More importantly, the team was almost two seconds up entering butterfly.<\/p>\n

Liendo, too, swam the second-quickest mark ever for his stroke, a time of 42.46 on butterfly behind only the otherworldly 42.12 he swam in last month’s NCAA-record-setting relay. That left\u00a0Alex Painter<\/strong> a chance to cruise home, and the freshman came through with a 40.92 split. Florida’s final time was 2:56.10, which broke the meet record posted by Arizona State last year by more than a second.<\/p>\n

While the early DQ left Florida buried in the team standings, the team now sits in fourth place overall at 233 points, and the team hardly misses the 40 points lost as the top-three teams in the standings appear out of reach.<\/p>\n

After seeing their first national title wiped out this week, the celebration Friday was initially hesitant but confident.<\/p>\n

“When we are on the podium,” Smith said of when the celebration started in earnest. “But I think we just celebrate each other’s work, because we knew we all worked so hard to get to this point, and it was just it was bound to happen.”<\/p>\n

Painter’s resolve on the anchor typified the Florida approach: Just do your job and all will go well.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, not much goes through my mind when I’m up on the block,” the British international said. “Just waiting for them to touch, for me to go. But I think the main thing is just don’t rush. We’ve got the lead. We’ve just want to be controlled and take it step by step, hit turns, hit the finish, because really, it was ours to lose.”<\/p>\n

Second place went to Texas in 2:58.95, good for 34 points and a 55.5-point lead over California entering the final day of competition.\u00a0Hubert Kos<\/strong>, already a double winner in the 200 IM and 100 back, moved to butterfly for this relay and split 43.45 while\u00a0Luke Hobson<\/strong> came home in 40.64.\u00a0Will Modglin<\/strong> and\u00a0Nate Germonprez<\/strong> provided the front half of this team.<\/p>\n

Arizona State finished two hundredths back of Texas (2:58.97) with a team of\u00a0Jack Wadsworth<\/strong>,\u00a0Andy Dobrzanski<\/strong>,\u00a0Ilya Kharun<\/strong> and\u00a0Jonny Kulow<\/strong>. The two Sun Devils returning from last year’s title-winning team, Kharun and Kulow, each sizzled on their respective strokes; Kharun split 42.83, a mark which only he and Canadian countryman Liendo have ever eclipsed, while Kulow went 40.11. The latter time is the fourth-best ever, with only Jordan Crooks<\/strong> having ever gone quicker.<\/p>\n

Also breaking 3:00 were Cal (2:59.12) and Indiana (2:59.73).\u00a0Dare Rose<\/strong> went 43.39 on the butterfly leg for the Golden Bears while the teams got identical 50.45 breaststroke splits from\u00a0Yamato Okadome<\/strong> and\u00a0Finn Brooks<\/strong>, respectively. Georgia (3:00.38), Stanford (3:00.91) and Michigan (3:01.19) rounded out the top-eight.<\/p>\n

In ninth place was the NC State team of\u00a0Quintin McCarty<\/strong>,\u00a0Sam Hoover<\/strong>,\u00a0Luke Miller<\/strong> and\u00a0Jerry Fox<\/strong>, and the team’s time of 3:01.34 was good for an American record. The Wolfpack clipped the previous top American-only time of 3:01.51 established by the Cal team of\u00a0Ryan Murphy<\/strong>,\u00a0Connor Hoppe<\/strong>,\u00a0Matt Josa<\/strong> and\u00a0Michael Jensen<\/strong> eight years ago. Every team ahead of NC State was ineligible for the record with at least one foreign swimmer on their teams.<\/p>\n

In 10th was Tennessee in 3:01.40, and Crooks anchored that team in 39.95. The mark was the third occasion in his career in which Crooks has broken 40 seconds on a relay split, with no one having ever been quicker.<\/p>\n

As for the team battle, Texas now has 368 points, comfortably but not safely ahead of Cal as the team seeks a 16th national title and the first in the post-Eddie Reese<\/strong> era. The new leader of the Longhorn men’s program,\u00a0Bob Bowman<\/strong>, is looking for a second consecutive title with different teams, having led Arizona State to the promised land last year. Cal sits second ahead of Indiana, 312.5-304, with Florida in fourth (233). A battle is shaping up for fifth, with Georgia (177.5) just ahead of Arizona State (172), Tennessee (162.5) and Stanford (162).<\/p>\n