After Stanford women’s swimming was unable to keep its conference title streak alive and fell second to No. 1 Cal at the Pac-12 Championships last week, it was time for Stanford men’s swimming to test its luck. The team earned 788 points across four days of competition in Houston to also finish second.
Despite having had just two official competitions in the regular season as preparation, Stanford demonstrated its strength from day one of the Pac-12 Championship, when the Cardinal’s 800 free relay team 𑁋 freshmen Luke Maurer and Preston Forst, junior Mason Gonzalez and redshirt senior Grant Shoultz 𑁋 earned second place with a 6:12.83. The time was good enough for an NCAA A standard mark and just 17 hundredths of a second behind the school record.
Freshmen Jonathan Affeld and Ethan Hu, sophomore Leon McAlister and junior Daniel Roy swam to a third place finish in the 400 medley relay with a provisional mark of 3:06.14.
The second day saw depth from the Cardinal. In the 500 free finals, Shoults, Forst and senior True Sweetser came in fourth, fifth and eighth, respectively, with the former two both swimming provisional marks.
Stanford put forward a 4-5-6- finish in the 200 IM as Affeld tallied a 1:43.49, and senior Alex Liang and sophomore Shane Blinkman followed close behind. Affeld also completed a leg for the fourth-place-finishing 200 free relay team with Gonzalez, Maurer and freshman Rick Mihm.
Day three was a freshmen field day as the class earned 112 points for the Cardinal. Hu and Affeld notched fourth and fifth place finishes in the 100 fly, respectively. Maurer finished fourth in the 200 free and Mihm recorded a provisional mark and seventh-place finish in the 400 IM. Forst headlined the freshmen’s contributions with a 1:33.23 mark in the 200 free, which was substantial for a third-place outcome.
Roy also earned a podium spot with a third-place result in the 100 breast to help send the Cardinal into the final day of competition in second-place overall.
Unfortunately for Stanford, No. 2 California was just too much to overtake during the final day of action, despite numerous Cardinal tallying notable performances. Shoults and Sweetser cruised to a 3-4 finish in the 1650 free with times of 14:49.12 and 14:53.08, respectively. Junior Jon Cook came in fourth and freshman Ethan Dang swam to eighth in the 200 breast to add 27 points to Stanford’s total; Roy posted a 1:51.07 second-place finish in the event to boast Stanford’s best result of the day and shatter his school record.
The Cardinal’s 788 points is the program’s highest point total since 2016.
Full team results can be found on gostanford.com.