ACC Champion Cal Men's Swimming (and Diving) racing for NCAA Glory this week
Golden Bears will race for some individual, relay, and team title this week from Federal Way, Washington
Not counting the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 school year that did not have most winter nor any spring national championships, Cal Athletics has won a national championship (team, individual, relay, pair, boat, etc.) every year since 1972-73. The first national championship of the 2024-25 school year will likely come this week from Federal Way, Washington where Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving will compete in the NCAA Championships.
The landscape of men’s collegiate swimming (and diving) has changed quite a bit since last year. The 2024 NCAA title went to Arizona State behind the strength of French superstar swimmer Leon Marchand under the guidance of Bob Bowman. ASU’s triumph halted Cal’s bid for an NCAA team championship three-peat. Marchand has since turned pro to fully capitalize on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as the home superstar. Bowman moved on to collegiate swimming power Texas, bringing along stars like Hungarian Hubert Kos from Tempe to Austin or US Olympian Chris Guiliano from Notre Dame.
New rules limiting roster size (where the SEC not caring about men’s Olympic sports may tie Texas’ hands more than other programs) will continue to change collegiate swimming further next year, but 2025 should be an exciting three-four-team race for the NCAA crown.
Since 2010, 10 of the 13 NCAA team titles came down to Cal vs. Texas. This year, Indiana (with the help of their strong diving program) and Florida should also be in the mix for a tight team race. California Golden Bears have their 14-year consecutive top-2 finish streak dating back to 2010 on the line.
Post-Olympic years are often harder to predict than most. Some swimmers experience a big dropoff due to less intensive training after making (or missing out) on their Olympic dreams. Cal, under Director of Swimming and Diving Dave Durden, is particularly notorious for peaking only at the NCAA championship meet. A large portion of the Cal team this season, particularly the contingent that will race at the NCAA, has been through this before winning the back-to-back NCAA team titles in 2022 and 2023.
Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Washington is a familiar venue for Cal. This has been the main site of the Pac-12 Championships. Golden Bears are used to having success at this pool. Does that familiar and lesser travel matter much at all? We shall see. After all, this first season in a new conference is largely about adapting for the Cal Bears across all sports.
ACC Champion!
New conference, same (expected) result.
In case you missed it from just over a month ago, Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving won Cal Athletics’ first ACC team championship in Greensboro, NC.
The move to the ACC did not change Cal Swimming’s regular season dual meet schedule. Yet, the ACC Swimming Championships require Cal to not only travel to the East Coast but also to stay longer (more days in a mixed format with men’s and women’s events alternating) and compete earlier than how the Pac-12 had done the conference championships (mirroring the NCAA with the men racing the week after the women, just like the national championship schedule).
When all of the events had finished, Cal Men returned to the familiar place atop a new podium. This was the program’s 10th all-time conference title, obviously the first in the ACC.
En route to the team title, Cal won three relays and three individual ACC titles.
Cal swept the two meet-opening relays by winning the 200y Medley Relay with the quartet of Seeliger, Okadome, Rose, and Alexy and then the 800y Free Relay with the quartet of Alexy, Jett, Lasco, Henveaux. Day 2 saw Belgium Calympian Lucas Henveaux winning the 500y Freestyle with a new ACC record. After more podiums but not quite wins, Cal closed the meet with Gabriel Jett winning 200y Back and Jack Alexy inning 100y Free. Cal also closed the meet with a 400y Free Relay victory after the team title had already been clinched.
Cal added two but not three Paris 2024 Olympians before the ACC Championships
In a move that angered some swimming fans of other schools, Cal was able to register two Paris 2024 Olympians to their roster just before the ACC Championships.
Belgium “Calympian” Lucas Henveaux, who has already raced with Cal as a contributor to that 2023 NCAA team title after starting his collegiate career as a golfer, was given more eligibility. Joining Henveaux was French Olympian Mewen Tomac, who I had mentioned during our Paris Olympic coverage as a Cal-commit. Due to Tomac having raced in the pro swimming league ISL, there was some issue with his NCAA eligibility. This was also only sorted before the deadline.
In the psych sheet for the ACC Championships, USA Olympian Brooks Curry was listed as a racer for Cal. Curry, who swam for four years at LSU before moving to Cal to train with the Cal Pro Group that led to a second Olympic berth and a Silver medal in Paris, supposedly had another year of eligibility. Ultimately Curry did not get to race for the Golden Bears due to his involvement with the Athlete Partnership Agreement with USA Swimming where he may have taken some prize money.
Monitoring the last-chance meets carefully, I was disappointed to see no last-minute eligibility for Curry. He would have improved Cal’s relays and scored an additional 40+ points, most likely.
Schedule of Events (Time in PDT)
March 26 — 6 pm finals
200-yard Medley Relay
800-yard Freestyle Relay
March 27 — 10 am prelims | 6 pm finals
500-yard Freestyle
200-yard Individual Medley
50-yard Freestyle
One-meter Diving
200-yard Freestyle Relay
March 28— 10 am prelims | 6 pm finals
100-yard Butterfly
400-yard Individual Medley
200-yard Freestyle
100-yard Breaststroke
100-yard Backstroke
Three-meter Diving
400-yard Medley Relay
March 29 — 10 am prelims | 6 pm finals
1,650-yard Freestyle
200-yard Backstroke
100-yard Freestyle
200-yard Breaststroke
200-yard Butterfly
Platform Diving
400-yard Freestyle Relay
Cal’s Roster
Despite qualifying 19 swimmers and 2 divers for the NCAA Championships, Cal can only have 17 swimmers and 2 divers compete due to the roster limit rule.
Freshman Freddy Klein, who qualified for the 1650y Free (AKA the swimming mile) and Junior Luca Gissendaner who qualified for the 100y Breast were dropped from the NCAA roster. Junior Matthew Chai, who would have made the NCAA being one of the top swimmers to miss the A-cut line, will also not race this week.
Jack Alexy – 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle
Frank Applebaum – 200 butterfly
Robin Hanson – 200 freestyle
Lucas Henveaux – 1650 freestyle, 500 freestyle
Matthew Jensen – 100 freestyle
Gabriel Jett – 500 freestyle, 200 backstroke, 200 freestyle
Keaton Jones – 200 backstroke
Tyler Kopp – 500 freestyle, 400 individual medley
Destin Lasco – 200 individual medley, 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke
Nans Mazellier – 200 freestyle
Humberto Najera – 400 individual medley
Yamato Okadome – 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke
Evan Petty – 100 backstroke
Hank Rivers - 200 breaststroke
Dare Rose – 200 butterfly, 100 butterfly
Björn Seeliger – 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle
Mewen Tomac – 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke
Joshua Thai – three-meter dive, platform dive
Geoffrey Vavitsas – three-meter dive, platform dive
This will be the final collegiate meet for several Cal Swimming greats: senior and USA Calympian Jack Alexy, senior Gabriel Jett, Swedish Calympian senior Robin Hanson, graduate student Destin Lasco, graduate student Dare Rose, and Swedish Calympian graduate student Bjorn Seeliger.
They led Cal to back-to-back NCAA team titles in 2022 and 2023. They want to end their Cal career with another national championship.
Destin Lasco, the reigning NCAA champion in 200y IM and 200y Back, has not shown his expected top speed yet at any meet this season. Lasco has the rare chance to become one of the very few swimmers and the first Cal Bear since Ryan Murphy, to four-peat as NCAA 200y Back champion.
Bjorn Seeliger has also the proven track record to outperform his seed.
Another reigning NCAA champion for Cal is the quartet of Gabriel Jett, Destin Lasco, Jack Alexy, and Robin Hanson, as the defending NCAA champion in the 800y Free Relay. Cal did put Henveaux in favor of Hanson for this relay at the ACC.
Looking at the psych sheet which Cal should outperform greatly in top time, Jack Alexy is always a contender in the sprint races (50y Free and 100y Free). Henveaux should also make the A-Finals in 500y Free and 1650y Free. Jett can also be penciled in for points for multiple events. USA Calympian Keaton Jones might be better suited for the long course, but he should hopefully score points in the backstroke events.
Out of the newcomers, freshman Yamato Okadome should score points in the breaststroke events in addition to being Cal’s breaststroker in the medley relays. Transfer to Cal from a D2 school, Frank Applebaum had an impressive swim in a last-chance meet to earn a spot on the postseason roster.
Not to be forgotten, the two divers Geoffrey Vavitsas and Joshua Thai are returning to the NCAA for their 2nd and 3rd times, respectively. Last year, both guys scored points in platform diving with Vavitsas placing 5th and Thai placing 10th.
Texas is considered the favorite to take the NCAA crown, and Indiana is also projected to finish just ahead of Cal due to the Hoosiers’ expected edge from diving.
As the resident optimist, I am here to say that Cal does have a realistic path to the team title.
The Golden Bears need to win the double-point relays.
Cal stars need to get those A-Final lanes and finish in the top half (closer to 20 than 10 points).
The rest of the roster needs to make some B-Finals. Prelim sessions are when the team titles are won (or lost). Tyler Kopp (18th seed in 500y Free, 19th seed in 400y IM), Robin Hanson (17th seed in 200y Free), Nans Mazellier (22nd seed in 200y Free), and Matthew Jensen (21st seed in 100y Free) earning a top-16 finish would help the Cal cause, not to mention injecting a lot of energy to the rest of the squad.
Evan Petty (10th seed in 100y Back), Hank Rivers (12th seed in 200y Breast), and Frank Applebaum (12th seed in 200y Fly) could also score valuable points if they can stay in the top-16.
The margin for error for Cal is small here, unlike the case for Texas. But there might just be enough parity across the various schools for Cal to top Texas when all of the points are allotted on Saturday night. This should be an exciting meet!
Livstream: ESPN+
Live Scoring: Meet Mobile
GO BEARS!
200y Medley Relay:
3 California 1:21.54 1:20.76 32
1) Seeliger, Bjorn 5Y 2) r:0.15 Okadome, Yamato FR
3) r:0.24 Rose, Dare 5Y 4) r:0.31 Alexy, Jack SR
r:+0.67 10.00 20.57 (20.57)
30.63 (10.06) 43.34 (22.77)
51.95 (8.61) 1:02.73 (19.39)
1:11.37 (8.64) 1:20.76 (18.03)
Bears finished 3rd after Florida was DQ'ed for an early takeoff. Unfortunately, Texas instead moved up to 1s and got the doubled bonus points.
Texas 40, Cal 32 (had Florida's result held, it would have been Texas 34, Cal 30)
800y Free Relay is coming up at 7 PM PT