FEDERAL WAY, Washington, March 5. TWO Pac-12 meet records fell in two events to kick off the first night of racing at the Men’s Pac-12 Championships at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. Arizona set a new meet record in the opening 200 medley relay before Southern California followed suit with a second meet record in the 800 free relay. USC’s win gave them the lead in the team standings after night one.
In the opening 200 medley relay, the Arizona Wildcats dominated the field, as the foursome of Mitchell Friedemann (21.78), Kevin Cordes (23.11), Giles Smith (20.09) and Brad Tandy (18.52) put together a 1:23.50 to take the win and crush the 2011 meet record of 1:23.92, set by California’s Guy Barnea, Damir Dugonjic, Graeme Moore and Nathan Adrian.
California, who got off to a quick start thanks to Ryan Murphy’s swift 21.32 lead-off, took second with Murphy, Chuck Katis (23.72), Tony Cox (20.10) and Tyler Messerschmidt (18.77) posting a 1:23.91. Southern California’s Chase Bloch (21.56), Sergio Lujan-Rivera (23.87), Maclin Davis (20.52) and Santo Condorelli (19.30) placed third in 1:25.25.
USC put together four strong swims by Dylan Carter (1:33.61), Dimitri Colupaev (1:34.16), Reed Malone (1:32.85) and Cristian Quintero (1:31.92) to blow away the field by nearly four seconds with a 6:12.54 in the 800 free relay. That broke the meet record of 6:14.82 set by Arizona’s Jean Basson, Nicolas Nilo, Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or and Joel Greenshields in 2009.
Cal’s quartet of Trent Williams (1:33.71), Seth Stubblefield (1:33.53), Long Gutierrez (1:34.29) and Will Hamilton (1:34.88) finished a distant second in 6:16.41. Stanford, led by Tom Kremer (1:35.29), Dave Nolan (1:32.82), Chris Pickard (1:36.69) and Drew Cosgarea (1:35.78), rounded out the top three in 6:20.58.
Through two events, the University of Southern California is in the lead with 72 points. Arizona and California are tied for second with 68 apiece, followed by Stanford (62), UC Santa Barbara and Utah (54 points each), Arizona State (50) and Cal Poly (44).
Results For: Men’s Pac-12 Championships, Day One