By David Rieder
LONG BEACH, California, March 5. AFTER Stanford looked well on its way to its 29th straight Pac-10 title with a dominant performance on night two, California fought back during night three of short course yard swimming at the Pacific 10 Men's Championships.
Cal finished the night in the lead with 570 points heading into the final night of competition. Stanford is just 10 points back with 560, while Arizona (434), Southern California (349), and Arizona State (227) round out the competing teams. Leading the Cal charge were freshman Tom Shields and junior Damir Dugonjic, who each recorded victories in the 100 fly and 100 breast, respectively.
Stanford opened the night with a win in the 400 IM, as Bobby Bollier's time of 3:45.05 was a second faster than that of Arizona's Jack Brown, who touched in 3:46.05, ahead of three Cal swimmers, Ben Hinshaw (3:46.48), Aaron Casey (3:46.56), and Martin Liivamagi (3:47.53). Notably, Stanford's Matt Thompson swam a 3:45.06 to win the B final; with that time he would have placed second in the A final. All of the top swimmers recorded NCAA consideration times.
Cal came up huge in the 100 fly, with six of the top eight swimmers being Golden Bears. Shields clocked an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 45.75 to win the event. Finishing second was Stanford's Eugene Godsoe, with an NCAA B time of 46.11, just ahead of Cal's Graeme Moore, who finished in 46.29.
USC's Clement Lefert dominated the 200 free, clocking a time of 1:33.75, well ahead of his teammate Patrick White, who swam a time of 1:34.52. In a remarkable test of endurance, Shields returned to take third in a time of 1:35.12, just ahead of Arizona's Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or (1:35.18).
Defending NCAA champion Damir Dugonic repeated as Pac-10 champion in the 100 breast in an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 52.12. Stanford's Curtis Lovelace and USC's Dillon Connolly rounded out the top three, both recording A cuts of 52.51 and 52.73, respectively.
Stanford's Godsoe was back for the 100 back, the event in which he holds the top time in the nation, and he dominated the race, recording an A cut of 46.03 for the win. Godsoe was more than a second ahead of Cal's Mathias Gydesen, who finished in 47.04. Arizona's Jake Tapp and Bryan O'Conner tied for third, with times of 47.11, just a tenth ahead of Cal's Guy Barnea (47.21).
ASU dominated the three-meter diving, as Constantin Blaha scored 435.55 points to take first, ahead of his teammate Cameron Bradshaw, who scored 389.85 points. Stanford's Brent Eichenseer scored 382.00 points, the third highest score, not far ahead of ASU's Riley McCormick (381.20 points) and USC's Harrison Jones (380.10 points).
Cal closed out the penultimate night with victory in the 400 medley relay, as Gydesen (47.56), Dugonjic (51.72), Shields (45.10, and sprint superstar Nathan Adrian (41.33) clocked an NCAA A cut of 3:05.71 to defeat Stanford, whose team of Godsoe, Lovelace, Bollier, and David Dunford also swam an A time (3:06.43). Both teams finished well ahead of Arizona, whose team of Tapp, Kevin Munsch, Jordan Slaughter, and Shapira Bar-Or finished third in 3:11.07, an NCAA B cut.
Results: Pacific 10 Men's Championships
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March 7, 2010 Cal freshman Tom Shields, already the national prep record-holder in the 200 yard free, added his first NAG record tonight via his 45.75 100 fly title (17-(17-18 boys).
Old record: 45.91 by Texas' Ian Crocker @ 2001 NCAAs.
Crocker, Sranford's Pablo Morales and Indian's Mark Spitz are only three guys to win NCAA 100 fly title four years' runing.
With Stanord's defending champ Austin Staab not in field this year I'd say Field has a great shot at starting a similar s6reak. (And both Morales and Spitz also won Olympic 100 fly golds.)
Former Florida star David Larson and his then coach, Randy Reese, always accused me (ME!) of having a "West Coast" bias in my coverage of the sport while I was with Swimming World.
In keeping with that "unobjectiivty" I'll go on record as saying Shields'll beat Gator Shaune Fraser and Auburn's Tyler McGill for the gold @ NCAAs and take North Carolina's Tommy Wyher to school too!
McGill was runner-up lastyear and was a 100 fly finalist @ the World Championships in Rome. Submitted by: slickwillie32
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