No. 8 Stanford men’s swimming and diving (5-2, 2-2 Pac-12) put in a stellar diving performance against No. 2 Cal (7-1, 5-1) on Saturday but couldn’t match the depth in the swimming events as the Cardinal fell on their Senior Day at Avery Aquatic Center, 130-113.
“At the end of the day, we competed and challenged Cal very well,” said head coach Ted Knapp. “For us to compete as we did and put ourselves in a position to win was a big positive from today.”
Stanford swept the top four in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events but was only able to claim victories in three of the 11 swimming events. Sophomore Sam Perry and senior Gray Umbach were the only Cardinal swimmers to claim individual victories on the day, with Perry winning the 50 free in 20.09 and Umbach narrowly edging Cal freshman Andrew Seliskar in 1:44.20 in the 200 butterfly.
Junior Bradley Christensen dominated both of the diving events, marking 363.15 in the 1-meter and 440.63 in the 3-meter event, and senior Connor Kuremsky and sophomores Tarek Abdelghany and Ted Miclau were not far behind.
With the meet already decided in favor of the Golden Bears, the Cardinal also added a victory in the 200 free relay, closed out by a third leg from Umbach and a stellar 19.75 anchor leg from fellow senior Jeff Garnier to give the Stanford “B” team a narrow victory over Cal’s “A” squad.
The divers, seemingly peaking at the right time, will head to their Pac-12s this Wednesday in Federal Way, Washington, with the swimming Pac-12s taking place from March 2-5.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark27 ‘at’ stanford.edu.