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By David Rieder.
Texas and Cal have occupied the top two spots in the team rankings at the NCAA championships each of the past two seasons, and both teams set themselves up nicely during the first full prelims session of the meet—but only after surviving one major scare each.
During the final heat of the 200 IM, Texas’ Will Licon was taking control of the race at the halfway when the official standing behind his lane threw her arm into the air, questioning whether he had touched on his back at the end of the backstroke leg.
Licon, the defending NCAA champion in the 200 IM, ended up winning the heat in 1:40.50, but the results were declared unofficial. After a few nervous moments, the results were confirmed, and Licon got to keep lane four for the final—and Jonathan Roberts finished eighth for the Longhorns, turning a potential disaster into a two-up situation.
Cal’s moment for concern came at the tail end of the session in the 400 medley relay. Head coach Dave Durden made the call to leave off Olympic gold medalist backstroker Ryan Murphy, and the decision almost backfired big-time when freshman Zheng Quah led off in 46.25.
The Bears ended up finishing in 3:04.95, the ninth-fastest time of the morning and five one-hundredths behind Stanford for what looked like the last spot in the championship final.
But Alabama, which had apparently qualified sixth out of prelims, was DQed for a turn infraction from butterflyer Luke Kaliszak, and the Bears safely moved on.
NC State, currently the leader in the team race after an impressive victory in the 800 free relay, put Anton Ipsen, Andreas Vazaios and Ryan Held into championship finals, and the Wolfpack 200 free relay goes into the evening seeded third, but the 400 medley relay did not earn a spot in the A-final.
Cause for panic for the Wolfpack? Not really, since the coaches picked that relay to be the one that Vazaios and Held sat out. But squeaking into the top heat would have made Braden Holloway and co. feel much more comfortable heading into the evening.
Along with Cal and Texas, Florida, Indiana and Missouri all finished with both relays in A-finals. Blake Pieroni, fresh off his 1:30.87 200 free leading off the 800 free relay, keyed both Hoosier relays into the top heats, and Florida’s Caeleb Dressel led his team with splits of 17.99 and 40.56—seemingly routine for him at this point.
Missouri only had one individual make it back for finals (Michael Chadwick in the top heat of the 50 free), but getting two relays up was a big step for a program looking to match or surpass last year’s eighth-place finish in the team competition.
After sneaking into the 200 free relay final in seventh, freshman Daniel Hein joined seniors Fabien Schwingenschlogl, Andrew Sansoucie and Chadwick to post the top qualifying time in the 400 medley relay. The Tigers’ time of 3:02.53 easily surpassed second-place Texas’ time of 3:03.45.
Is a national title in reach? Possibly, but it won’t come easily. Texas has plenty of room to drop after Joseph Schooling split 45.41, pedestrian by his standards, and Cal will add Murphy and possibly replace butterflyer Justin Lynch with Matthew Josa.
Speaking of programs with banner morning performances, South Carolina put three swimmers into the top-16 in the 500 free, including top seed Fynn Minuth, second seed Akaram Mahmoud and 16th seed Tom Peribonio.
Minuth and Mahmoud will certainly have their challenges in hanging on to the top spot—such as the two most recent NCAA champions in the event, Clark Smith and Townley Haas—but the Gamecocks are now projected for 38 points during that one finals session, more than double their psych sheet projection of 18.
For a program only seeded to score 57 total at the meet, that bump could push South Carolina towards a potential top-15 finish, although there remains much work to be done over the next two days.
Other teams with multiple A-finalists include Florida (Mark Szaranek in the 500 free and Dressel in the 50 free), Michigan (Felix Auboeck in the 500 free and Paul Powers in the 50 free) and Georgia (Gunnar Bentz and Chase Kalisz, both in the 200 IM).
Read below for a full list of ups and downs from the prelims session. The first number refers to a team’s total number of A-finalists and the second to the total of consolation finalists.
Ups/Downs in individual events:
Texas – 5/3
Cal – 3/2
NC State – 3/2
Florida – 2/2
South Carolina – 2/1
Michigan – 2/0
Georgia – 2/0
Stanford – 1/5
Indiana – 1/2
Auburn – 1/1
Missouri – 1/0
USC – 1/0
Alabama – 0/1
Hawaii – 0/1
North Carolina – 0/1
Northwestern – 0/1
Virginia Tech – 0/1
Wisconsin – 0/1
Ups/downs in relays:
Cal – 2/0
Florida – 2/0
Indiana – 2/0
Missouri – 2/0
Texas – 2/0
Auburn – 1/1
Louisville – 1/1
NC State – 1/1
Stanford – 1/1
Alabama – 1/0
Southern Cal – 1/0
Arizona – 0/2
Arizona State – 0/2
Notre Dame – 0/2
Tennessee – 0/2
Georgia – 0/1
Florida State – 0/1
Ohio State – 0/1
Texas A&M – 0/1
