DQ drama highlights NCAA Day 2 morning; 3 Cal Bears + both relay in A-Final

With the first full day of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, we know that contenders like Cal and Texas will be stepping up their swims and dropping some massive time from the prelim to get more guys into scoring positions. On day 1, defending champs Texas Longhorns did a better job of this than the California Golden Bears. This was particularly true after one of the biggest riser for the Bears, Matthew Josa was DQ’ed for his 200 IM swim that would have been good for the A-Final. Then again, the Golden Bears benefited from an Alabama DQ (on a similar stroke issue during breaststroke leg of the medley relay) to make the A-Final for the 400 medley relay.

200 Free Relay - Pawel Sendyk (19.00), Michael Jensen (19.05), Justin Lynch (19.08), Mathew Josa (18.98) gave the Bears the 4th best time behind Texas, Florida, and NC State going into tonight’s A-Final.

500 Free - Texas will send two to the A-Final in Clark Smith and Townley Haas (4th and 5th in the prelim). Cal Bears finished 32nd (Ryan Kao) and 50th (Ken Takahashi) in this event. NC State goes 1 up, 1 down and Stanford goes 1 up, 2 down.

200 IM - Texas’ Will Licon had the top prelim time of 1:40.50 although the SwimSwam guy next to me thought Licon may have DQ’ed on his exchange from back to breast. In a surprise, Texas’ Jonathan Roberts made the A-Final on the 8th spot. That spot would not be available had Cal’s Mathew Josa’s time stood. Instead of having 3 A-Finalists, the Golden Bears will have to settle for Andrew Seliskar and Ryan Murphy in the A-Final tonight.

Mike Thomas finished 19th for the Golden Bears. Jack Xie was 38th.

NC State’s Andreas Vazaios may challenge Licon for the title; he had the 2nd best time. The Wolfpacks goes 1 up, 1 down. Stanford goes 0 up, 2 down.

50 Free - A ton of Texas Longhorns and Cal Bears improved their time to get into scoring position. Cal’s freshman Pawel Sendyk drops some significant to be the lone Bear in the A-final against Texas’ Joseph Schooling. NC State’s Ryan Held is also in the mix, although Florida’s Jacob Dressel set a pool record in the morning.

Three Longhorns (Ringgold, Conger, and Jackson) will go up against two Golden Bears (Jensen and Lynch) in the B-Final.

Long Gutierrez finished 37th. NC State has 1 up, 0 down in this event. Stanford has 0 up, 1 down (Sam Perry) in this sprint event.

400 Medley Relay - Coach Dave Durden decides to save some of his top guns (like Ryan Murphy) for tonight. The plan almost backfired for the Bears who had to swim in the 2nd heat as they were 9th in the time when all the heats were over but only pumped up to the A-Final because Alabama was DQ’ed.

Zheng Quah (46.25), Connor Hoppe (51.51), Justin Lynch (45.29), and Michael Jensen (41.90) had decent splits but Murphy would have gave the Bears that precious extra second if not more.

Overall, the Bears are in contention for both relays and two events (200 IM and 50 Free) with three individuals (Seliskar and Murphy in 200 IM and Sendyk in 50 Free) in the mix for national titles tonight. The A-Final bump may be very very big in this meet, but it’s up to the Golden Bears to take full advantage.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

Here are your links to view this meet online:

Since I am at the meet this year, I am not sure if the links are correct. Please let me know if they are not working and I will attempt to fix them.

My preview of the entire meet: CGB

Prelims starts at 7 AM PT, Finals starts at 3 PM PT

Thursday Prelims/Finals: IUPUI

Friday Prelims: IUPUI

Friday Finals: ESPN3

Saturday Prelims: IUPUI

Saturday Finals: ESPN3

Live swimming results: Swimming Results

Live diving results: Diving Results

Schedule: Indiana Sports Corp

GO BEARS!