Cal Men's Swimming and Diving Officially Wins the National Championship
Cal Men's Swimming and Diving Officially Wins the National Championship
A sleuth of Cal Bears (7 in A-Finals, 3 in B-Finals) will race in Saturday's final session
Thanks to the depth of elite swimmers on the roster, California Golden Bears hold a slim lead in the three-way race atop of the team standings at the 2023 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships heading into the final seven events on Saturday. Cal leads perennial rival Texas and the upstart Arizona State despite not touching the wall first in any of the finished 12 swimming events.
As we wrote in the Meet Preview, Cal Bears are expected to have a very strong Saturday. Golden Bears could have multiple A-Finalists in each of the swimming events. Cal should also finally pick up an individual event win, the top challengers to defending champion Destin Lasco in the 200-yard Backstroke are fellow Cal Bears, if not more wins en route to a repeat team championship.
Meet Preview (including links to the ESPN+ streams of each session)
This post will be updated with the results of the Saturday (March 25th) prelim session as well as the live recaps for each event of the final session.
Final Team Standings
California 482
Arizona State 430
Texas 384
Indiana 379
NC State 373.5
Florida 367.5
Tennessee 216.5
Stanford 143.5
Virginia Tech 133
Auburn 127
Saturday Finals
1600-yard Freestyle
Lucas Henveaux was in an extended cat-and-mouse game with NC State junior Owen Lloyd. After starting as the hunter, he became the hunted about halfway into swimming’s mile. In the end, he found an incredible extra juice in the final 100 yards of the race as he came home in 52.1 seconds—the second-fastest of anyone in the entire event. His time of 14:44.14 in the early heats was quick enough to put him in 4th heading to the final event, which ultimately was 9th overall. NC State, a year after going 2nd and 3rd in this event, finished with the top two spots.
Congratulations to Henveaux on the incredible final collegiate swim!
200-yard Backstroke
In continuing the Cal dominance in this event, Destin Lasco (1:35.87) and Hugo Gonzalez (1:36.72), after being exactly even at the halfway point, swept the top two spots. Lasco just missed Cal legend Ryan Murphy’s NCAA record by .14 seconds, but he came away with the Bears’ first individual title of the meet. Colby Mefford and Sebastian Somerset finished in 12th (1:39.88) and 16th (1:41.91). Arizona State’s freshman duo Hubert Kos and Owen McDonald continued their incredible run by finishing in 3rd (1:37.97) and 5th (1:39.34), keeping the Sun Devils within striking distance. This event brings Cal’s lead to 21 points, as the Bears hope to clinch at least a 40-point lead prior to the relay so that they would guarantee a championship even if disqualified in the final relay.
Congratulations to Lasco, Gonzalez, Mefford, and Somerset on their fantastic swims to continue Cal’s backstroke tradition!
100-yard Freestyle
The Bears have been moving in pairs. The 6’7 Jack Alexy and 6’8 Bjorn Seeliger finished in 2nd (40.92) and 3rd (40.93), respectively. Their lengths certainly were an advantage in getting to the wall first when 2nd to 6th place were determined by less than .1 seconds. Florida star freshman Josh Liendo exploded off the starting block, and no one in the final stood a chance against his speed (40.28). That’s now a 42-point advantage that Cal shouldn’t have a problem holding.
Congratulations to Alexy and Seeliger for establishing themselves as NCAA’s top sprint duo!
200-yard Breaststroke
It was another Marchand spectacle and it was another moment in history. His 1st-place swim (1:46.91 - NCAA record) just cemented his weekend of performance among the all-time greatest showings in this sport (alongside UVA’s Kate Douglass last week, Florida’s Caeleb Dressel in 2018, etc). For Cal, it was Jason Louser, who dropped .09 seconds off his personal best, that finished 6th (1:50.90). Reece Whitley, in his final swim for Cal, finished in 16th (1:52.93).
Congratulations to Louser and Whitley for being stalwarts in this event over their collegiate careers!
200-yard Butterfly
The brotherhood of Cal swimmers is so strong that they can’t seem to finish anywhere other than beside each other. Gabriel Jett and Dare Rose finished in 3rd (1:39.40) and 4th (1:39.89) behind NC State’s Aiden Hayes (1st - 1:38.79) and Indiana’s Brendan Burns (2nd - 1:38.97). That brings Cal’s lead over Arizona State to 47, which is also Arizona State’s lead over 3rd-place Texas. Both Cal and Arizona State have clinched their champion and runner-up status for the meet (Pac-12 is thriving in this sport)!
Congratulations to Jett and Rose on their monstrous swims that officially enabled Cal to defend their title!
Platform Diving
Freshman Joshua Thai finished in 14th (337.55 points), earning 3 points for Cal in the team battle. Those 3 points were the first diving points for the Bears since 2008, Dave Durden’s first year at Cal and when Thai was just 4 years old. Diving coach Pei Lin, who was a top finisher in multiple events at NCAA Championships from 2015-2018, is providing early returns in her tenure as a coach at Cal.
Congratulations to Thai for doing what no one else has done in over a decade!
400-yard Freestyle Relay
The magic of relays means that it doesn’t have to make sense, but it sure always delivers. While Cal and ASU had their standings, Texas, Indiana, NC State, and Florida had something to fight for in the final relay. For instance, Indiana had to beat Texas by at least two places to finish 3rd overall, finish 8th while Texas finishes 9th, or finish 9th while Texas finishes 10th. In the end, Texas held onto 3rd place overall by mere hundredths of a second. But, in the center of the pool in the final heat of the final race, the battle for 1st was the sole focus of 12 swimmers. Josh Liendo jumped into an early lead for Florida that they never gave up, but Cal and Arizona State never relented. For Cal, it was the difference of a finger-tip as Florida took down the NCAA record (2:44.07) and the Bears finished second (2:44.08). Perhaps, the most impressive aspect of the race was Jack Alexy having the fastest split in the entire field when Leon Marchand swam a leg for ASU, who has only ever left the pool in the evening as the fastest ever until this race.
Congratulations to Seeliger, Alexy, Jensen, and Lasco for hitting a school record!
Saturday Prelim
200-yard Backstroke
Destin Lasco easily posted the best prelim time (1:36.68). Hugo Gonzalez also had no problem in winning his earlier heat (1:37.74) that turned out to be second best time. Colby Mefford qualified 11th (1:39.74) and Sebastian Somerset (1:40.04) qualified 14th to make the B-Final. Cal does lose some points relative to the psych sheet due to Mefford only making the B, but it is still a great result.
Cal 2/2, ASU 2/0, Texas 1/0
100-yard Freestyle
Jack Alexy posted the best time of the season (40.88) in winning heat 6 and earned the top seed going into the final. The psych sheet top-seed Bjorn Seeliger (41.17) also booked a spot in the A-Final. Matthew Jensen finished just outside scoring by placing 19th (42.07).
Cal 2/0, ASU 0/3, Texas 0/1
200-yard Breaststroke
Liam Bell (1:53.76) drops a lot of time (over 3 seconds to his seed time) in an inspiring swim in winning Heat 1. Jason Louser (1:51.43) finished 3rd in Heat 4 to eventually get in A-Final. In a fast heat with ASU’s Marchand and Texas’s Corbeau, Reece Whitley dropped off a bit in the last 25-yard (1:51.74) to only make the B-final.
Cal does lose more points relative to the psych sheet, but will limit the point gains by ASU and Texas by matching the number of finalists.
Cal 1/1, ASU 1/1, Texas 1/1
200-yard Butterfly
Ending the morning session in style for the Cal Bears, Gabriel Jett (1:39.71) and Dare Rose (1:40.00) finished 1-2 in the final heat as well as get the top-2 times of the morning to both book spots in the A-Final.
Cal 2/0, ASU 1/1, Texas 0/1
Total: Cal 7/3, ASU 4/5, Texas 2/3
Thoughts going into the final: Even with fewer A-Final spots than projected, Cal Bears are in a great shape with 7 A-Finalists and 3 B-Finalists heading into this afternoon’s mile swim (1650 Free). Lucas Henveaux could allow Cal to gain points in all 18 swimming events by scoring in the 1650 Free. Texas’s expected points from platform diving will not be enough to close the gap to Cal. Barring a slew of DQ’s, the NCAA championship is coming back to Berkeley.
ROLL ON YOU BEARS!
Friday Finals Session
Continuing the theme of this NCAA Championships, two more NCAA records were broken on Friday, bookending the session.
400-yard individual medley
ASU sophomore Leon Marchand could not be stopped. The Frenchman, who will surely become a superstar at the 2024 Paris Olympics, rewrote his record for 400 IM set earlier in the season. Marchand’s 3:28.82 was 5 more seconds better than the rest of the field, led by Cal 5th-year, Spanish Olympian, and defending champion in this event in Hugo Gonzalez (3:34.66). Cal senior Jason Louser finished 5th in an A-Final filled with swimmers from the top three teams: 2 Cal Bears, 2 ASU Sun Devils, and 3 Texas Longhorns.
100-yard butterfly
Cal junior Dare Rose was the only person from the three top teams to score points in this event. Rose finished 2nd in the consolation (B) final.
Virginia Tech won the first NCAA men’s swimming title in their history when Youssef Ramadan touched the wall first (then he gave a rather hilarious post-win interview about how cold the water is in training).
200-yard freestyle
Cal got another second place when sophomore Gabriel Jett finished behind Texas sophomore Luke Hobson. In both of his swims on Friday, Jett dropped 1.5 seconds from his previous best time. Patrick Callan, Michigan transfer and 2021 Tokyo US Olympic Silver Medalist in 4x200-meter freestyle relay, only posted the 32nd best time in the prelim.
ASU, with 3 A and 1 B Finalists, pulled ahead in the team standings after this event.
100-yard breaststroke
Cal regained the team lead with two A-Finalists in senior Liam Bell and graduate student Reece Whitley, placing 6th and 7th, respectively. Home pool hero, Minnesota’s Max McHugh repeated as the NCAA champ in this event.
100-yard backstroke
Touching the wall ahead of top-seed Destin Lasco (43.94) from Cal and the NCAA defending champion in NC State’s Stokowski (43.86) was Indiana’s Brendan Burns (43.61). Lasco, who also placed 2nd in 200 IM on Thursday, will try to repeat as the NCAA 200 Back champion on Saturday.
In the consolation final, Bjorn Seeliger finished 2nd behind a surprising lone representative of Southern Illinois, Ruard Van Renan. Seeliger made the A-Final in this event last year.
3-meter diving
Freshman diver Joshua Thai finished 32nd in his best diving event in his NCAA debut. Thai will also compete in platform diving on Saturday. Texas got one A-Finalist and two B-Finalist in this event, but their A-Finalist finished 8th.
400-yard medley relay
If you want to nitpick Cal director of swimming Dave Durden, you might have a point in asking why Whitley got the breaststroke leg over Bell. It was also interesting that Jett, who might be the favorite in 200 Fly on Saturday, got the butterfly leg over Dare Rose. Rose had slightly more time to rest since his 100 Fly B-Final than Jett got for his 200 Free A-Final. Cal Bears (3:00.38) finished 5th in this event behind Florida Gators’ new NCAA record of 2:58.32.
ASU, with Marchand swimming the breaststroke leg, took 3rd. Texas improved on their psych sheet by placing 8th.
Don't call these Water Bears tardigrades! They're not tardy to the wall!
Extend JK?