Cal Men’s Swimming defeats Stanford on Senior Day

Going into the Pac-12 Championships, Cal Men’s Swimming and Diving picks up yet another dual meet victory on Saturday afternoon, winning 172-122 over Stanford.

With the swimmers starting to taper with the NCAA championships a month away, 3 pool records were set. Senior Andrew Seliskar claimed a new 200 Fly pool record for Spieker with a time of 1:41.89 - breaking the old record of 1:43.91 by a full 2 seconds. Seliskar also won the 100 Fly to be the only multiple event winner of the day.

Sophomore Sean Greishop set a new 400 IM pool record and a new 200 Free Relay pool record was also set by the Cal quartet of Pawel Sendyk, Ryan Hoffer, Andrew Sliskar, and Michael Jansen.

Bears won 11 out of 16 events to finish the dual meet season at 6-0.

Besides Seliskar’s 2 wins, his fellow seniors Carson Sand won the 100 Breast and Nick Norman won the 1000 Free in their final home meet.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

Golden Bears will celebrate their seniors, including the emerging star on the national/international scene (aka likely future “Calympian”) Andrew Seliskar on Saturday’s noon meet against Stanford. The top ranked (in dual meet format) Golden Bears will close the regular season ahead of the Pac-12 Championships in two weeks and then an expected close battle against Texas Longhorns for the 2019 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships title.

The 6 Seniors that will be honored by the Bears are:

At this juncture of the season (much time, up to several seconds, will be dropped between now and the National Championships), Andrew Seliskar has proven to be a dominant force in his final regular season. Seliskar has posted top time in 200 Free, 200 Breast, and 200 IM in the Bears’ rout of USC Trojans two weeks ago.

Nick Norman has been a top distance swimmer for the Golden Bears in his Cal career. He also persevered over a rare immune disease in his sophomore year that prevented him from being at his best at the NCAA.

Mike Thomas had a breakout junior year and scored points in 3 events (1 A, 2 B finals) for the Bears at the NCAA. He swims both fly and IM.

Carson Sand is a breaststroker for the Bears. He also scored points at the NCAA last year with a 100 Breast B-final appearance.

Ken Takahashi qualified for the NCAA in his sophomore year for the 400 IM. He shone as a part of the Cal split squad that raced down in UCSD earlier this year.

David Puczkowski is the last senior. He has swam sprints and backstroke during his Cal career.

Congratulations and thank you to all the seniors. Let’s close out the regular season with a convincing rout of Stanford, please!

About the Bears’ NCAA chances vs. Texas

Golden Bears have dominated the swimming part of the projection. Of course, Texas is well known to perform much, much better in the NCAA championships, particularly with this year’s event being hosted by the Longhorns. Nonetheless, the Golden Bears should have a significant swimming advantage, but will it be enough to cover Texas’ dominance in diving?

Texas is expected to get 50-80 points from diving with at least 3 divers scoring points. That is a pretty significant amount of points.

Factoring how Texas’ time will improve, Bears have a conservative 60+ points margin in projection on the Longhorns...that is before a possible X-Factor in Spanish Olympian Hugo Gonzalez. We reported earlier this year that former the Auburn Tiger, who committed to Virginia Tech then went home to Spain, is now in Berkeley. NCAA has yet to rule on his eligibility for the 2019 NCAA championships. IF he is deemed eligible at the last minute (akin to how Cal got Zheng Quah two years ago just in time for the NCAA), Bears should be able to add 20-30 points easily (in 200 IM and 400 IM). That’s certainly enough points to possibly sway the NCAA title.

Dates to know:

From Federal Way, WA:

The Pac-12 Diving Championships is on February 27th-March 2nd and the Pac-12 Swimming Championships is on March 6th-9th.

The NCAA Zone E Diving Championships take place March 11th-13th in Flagstaff, AZ.

The 2019 NCAA Championships are set for March 27th-30th in Austin, TX.

No.1 California Golden Bears vs. Stanford

Where: Spieker (Berkeley, CA)

When: Noon PT

GO BEARS!