BERKELEY – The California men’s swimming and diving team wrapped up yet another undefeated season with another victory over Bay Area rival Stanford, taking the coveted meet win with a score of 184.5-115.5. Stanford’s sprint freestylers and diver Kristian Ipsen were able to keep the meet from being a complete rout by Cal, winning a total of three events.
Though Cal boasts a strong group of sprinters, it was Stanford who managed to win the 50 and 100 freestyles. Jack Descombes, a sophomore who was not a part of Stanford’s scoring team at last year’s Pac 12 championships, won the 50 free today against Cal with a lifetime best 20.15. Dillon Williams of Cal was second with a 20.19 with teammate Henry Chung third with a 20.30. Tyler Messerschmidt, who had been posting swims under 20 seconds with regularity in dual meets, was fifth with a 20.52.
Thomas Stephens, more suited for the 200 freestyle, took the 100 free today with a 44.22 to close out his dual meet career at Stanford. Another middle distance specialist, Tom Kremer, was second with a 44.41. Cal’s sprint trio of Seth Stubblefield (44.53), Messerschmidt (44.97) and Fabio Gimondi (45.19) were relegated to third through fifth place.
As expected, Kristian Ipsen was without peer in diving. He won the 3-meter event by 116 points over teammate Bradley Christensen, 456.08 to 340.43. In the 1-meter event, Ipsen and Christensen went 1-2 again, with Ipsen scoring 421.88 points to Christensen’s 326.10.
Three Cal standouts won two events each. Ryan Murphy took both backstroke events on his path to defending both NCAA titles with times of 46.41 and 1:42.54. The 100 back is his fastest dual-meet swim of the season, and the 200 back is his second-fastest after his 1:41.88 last month against Arizona. Notably, teammate Jeremy Dezwirek placed second in both races with times of 47.98 in the 100 and 1:43.55 in the 200.
Josh Prenot continues to test out the 200 butterfly, and won that today with a 1:45.30 over the 1:46.04 by Cal freshman Justin Lynch. They were able to take down NCAA scorer Kremer, who was third with a 1:47.48. Prenot came back to win the 200 IM over 2013 NCAA champion David Nolan, 1:45.16 to 1:46.90.
Long Gutierrez continued his impressive season in freestyle, winning the 200 free with a 1:36.37 by .01 over Nolan, then beating teammate Adam Hinshaw in the 500 by 15 hundredths of a second, 4:27.14 to 4:27.29. Also in the hunt was Stanford freshman Liam Egan, who was third with a 4:27.65.
Hinshaw got a win of his own in the 1000 freestyle, and he had to fight off teammate Janardan Burns to do it. Hinshaw led from the start, and barely withstood a 26.77 final 50 from Burns to win with a 9:15.06 to Burns’ 9:15.74.
Lynch kept Descombes from enjoying a second win today, coming from behind to take the 100 fly with a strong 47.70. Descombes had an impressive swim as well, placing second with a 47.99 ahead of the 48.03 by Andrew Liang.
Chuck Katis of Cal posted another impressive 100 breast time today with a 53.63, more than 1.5 seconds ahead of runner-up Zach Stevens of Stanford and his 55.27. With Katis and Prenot sitting out the 200 breast, that left the door open for Christopher Leon of Cal to win with a 1:58.12. Leon, a transfer from UC-Santa Barbara, dipped under two minutes for the first time in his career.
Cal and Stanford had some great battles in the relays. A 24.00 from Katis gave Cal a seven-tenths lead after the breaststroke leg of the 200 medley relay. That lead grew by one tenth in the butterfly, and a 19.65 from Stubblefield helped seal the deal for Cal to win with a 1:25.85 to Stanford’s 1:26.98.
The 400 free relay was much closer. An eight-tenths lead by Cal after the 300-yard mark was whittled away by Stanford’s Thomas Stephens, who posted a sizzling 43.71 anchor leg. It wasn’t enough to give the Cardinal the win, as Cal won by .15 seconds, 2:56.90 to 2:57.05.
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