FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – Abrahm DeVine won his second individual event on the week and Stanford finished second at the Pac-12 Conference Men's Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday night at the King County Aquatic Center.
Stanford's potential bid for a third straight conference crown was upended by Cal, as the Golden Bears won the event with 971 points. The Cardinal's 769 points were aided by individuals titles in the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley, 200-yard backstroke and platform diving.
"We are very excited for NCAA's in a few weeks," said Goldman Family Director of Men's Swimming Ted Knapp. "A lot of our veterans were unshaven, so we expect to see them go even faster. We're also very excited for several first-time NCAA qualifiers."
Six Cardinal swimmers finished in the top eight of the 1,650-yard freestyle, led by freshman Johannes Calloni (14:45.80) in third place. Grant Shoults (14:53.26) was fourth, James Murphy (14:54.41) took fifth, Matthew Hirschberger (14:58.12) was sixth, True Sweetser (15:01.29) placed seventh and Liam Egan (15:02.24) was eighth.
Abrahm DeVine (1:40.11) won his second individual swim of the meet, claiming the 200 back after winning the 200-yard individual medley on Thursday night. Curtis Ogren (1:42.94) finished seventh with Ben Ho (1:42.69), Jack Walsh (1:43.79) and Glen Cowand (1:43.83) swimming the B-final.
Brennan Pastorek (1:54.57) led Stanford in the 200-yard breaststroke, swimming a personal best in prelims and earning second in the evening session. Hank Poppe (1:55.52) lowered his prelim time to finish sixth and Matt Anderson (1:55.63) was 11th.
Brad Zdroik (1:43.55) shaved time from preliminaries to finish 10th in the 200-yard butterfly, and Alex Liang (1:44.72) finished 14th.
DeVine teamed with Alberto Mestre, Sam Perry and Andrew Liang to collect a second-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay (2:50.82) to end the meet with an NCAA A-cut.
Stanford returns to action at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 21-24. NCAA Zone E Diving starts on Monday, with both Tarek Abdelghany and Ted Miclau entered in all three events.