STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford improved to 5-0 in dual meets on the season with a 135-101 win over visiting Arizona State at Avery Aquatic Center to complete a Pac-12 Conference weekend doubleheader. Saturday’s victory, aided by an impressive outing by Stanford’s underclassmen, came less than 24 hours after the Cardinal downed No. 5 Arizona.
“The guys who really impressed me today were some of the freshmen,” Goldman Family Director of Men’s Swimming Ted Knapp said. “It was really good to see that the freshman class is progressing as well as we were hoping, as well as some other sophomores and juniors.
“It was nice to see the guys that swam the same events yesterday were faster or executed some skills better. That was very valuable for us to see. For those that are talented enough to swim multiple events, it was nice to see them swim events they didn’t get a chance to swim yesterday.”
Arizona State won the 200 medley relay (1:30.25) after Stanford’s A-unit was disqualified, but Danny Thomson (9:15.53) and Drew Cosgarea (9:24.17) responded with a 1-2 finish in the 1,000 free. Thomas Stephens’ 1:37.69 gave him a 200 free win by more than two seconds. The freestyle party continued with Conor Black’s win in the 50 (20.68) and Stephens notched another win by going 44.85 in the 100.
Tom Kremer (4:28.42) won the 500 free, the lone finisher ahead of Thomson (4:30.74).
Max Williamson was the first of three Cardinal to touch in the 200 IM, as his 1:48.27 came ahead of Mason Shaw (1:53.39) and Will Gunderson (1:51.45) in the 1-2-3 finish.
Williamson was the fastest in the 200 breast with a 2:01.38.
Bradley Christensen won the 1-meter event with 372.00 points as Noah Garcia (297.83) took third. Christensen’s 405.38 in the 3-meter edged out Arizona State’s Riley McCormick (404.70) for a second feather in the cap.
The 200 fly win went to Gray Umbach in 1:48.09 while David Nolan won the 200 back (1:46.85).
Stanford closed the day with a 2:58.82 in the 400 free relay.
Stanford hits the road for a pair of meets at UC Santa Barbara (Feb. 7) and USC (Feb. 8).
“With the Pac-12 and NCAA Championships down the road a little bit, we’ll still maintain a little bit of our training volume but tweak it a little bit for those that need to be more ready than others when we get to our conference championship,” Knapp said.