In its penultimate meet before the Pac-12 Championships, No. 11 Stanford men’s swimming and diving (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) upset No. 8 USC (4-2, 2-2 Pac-12) on the road Saturday. The Cardinal won 11 events and easily topped the Trojans 182-118.
The win marked the undefeated Cardinal’s fourth consecutive victory over a top-25 team, as they previously beat No. 22 Harvard, No. 6 Arizona State and No. 20 Arizona.
Stanford’s 11 event titles in Saturday’s meet were highlighted by sweeps of both relay events against the Trojans.
Leading the way for Stanford was redshirt freshman Andrei Minakov, who scored 23.5 points. The 2020 Olympian posted victories in both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly, clocking times of 19.58 and 46.40 seconds, respectively. He also swam on Stanford’s two winning relay teams.
Freshman Ron Polonsky won two events individually: the 200-yard IM (1:46.01) and 200-yard backstroke (1:44.99). The Cardinal swept the former event with sophomore Rick Mihm (1:46.65) taking second and graduate student Alex Liang (1:49.87) placing third. Polonsky also finished third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 53.98 seconds.
Sophomore Preston Forst picked up first-place finishes in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle with times of 1:35.44 and 4:20.47, respectively. He was also the first swimmer in Stanford’s first-place 400-yard freestyle relay team, where he was joined by junior Neel Roy, sophomore Luke Maurer and Minakov, who swam in that order.
Graduate student Grant Shoults placed first in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a 9:00.21 time and second in the 500-yard freestyle with a 4:22.28 time. His 9:00.21 time in the 1,000-yard freestyle was his fastest of the season thus far.
Senior Daniel Roy won the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:56.27. The four-time All American was followed up by sophomore Ethan Dang, who posted a 1:58.08 time.
Off the diving board, both freshman Jack Ryan and junior Ethan Foster posted season-high scores on the 1-yard. Ryan also placed second on the 3-yard.
Up next, the Cardinal will face Cal (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) in their final meet of the regular season. The meet is slated to begin at 12 p.m. PT on Feb. 19 at Avery Aquatic Center.