Stanford men’s swimming opens season with Stockton sweep

Stanford men’s swimming opened its season with dominant victories at the PAC Invite in Stockton, California this past weekend, beating out the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara, University of the Pacific and Seattle University in every event on the first day.

Stanford also posted the first and second fastest times in the 200-yard medley relay. The quartet of sophomore Finn Harland (backstroke), seniors Zhier Fan (breaststroke) and Rafael Gu (butterfly) and junior Jonathan Tan (freestyle) won with a time of 1:26.87 — more than two seconds ahead of Stanford’s B team and almost six seconds faster than Seattle, the fastest non-Stanford team. 

Stanford kept a clean slate in its relays with wins in the 200-yard and 800-yard freestyle relays. Freshman Jason Zhao ’28 led the 200-yard relay with the fastest lead-off split of 20.83.

After their relay, Tan and Gu went head-to-head in both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly. Tan out-touched Gu in freestyle, finishing first with a time of 19.80 to beat out Gu’s 19.93. In the 100-yard butterfly later in the afternoon, Gu fired back to top Tan, winning in 47.33 to Tan’s 47.83. 

Junior Henry McFadden, coming off competing at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, was the sole Stanford swimmer to win multiple individual events. In the 500-yard freestyle, he swam to first with a time of 4:28.60. Senior Liam Custer (4:32.01) and freshman Connor Jones (4:36.19) also placed in the event’s top three. Later in the afternoon, McFadden won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:38.36.

Six Cardinal swimmers finished ahead of any other school’s swimmers in the 200-yard individual medley, with junior Gibson Holmes leading the way in 1:49.42. 

Freshman Ray Liu burst onto the scene in Stockton, winning the 400-yard individual medley in 3:56.44 over Holmes, a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) qualifier in the event last year. Liu was the only newcomer on the Stanford team to win an individual event. 

In the 100 breaststroke, sophomores Daniel Li and Abram Mueller and senior Zhier Fan led the pack, with Li winning the event in a time of 53.54. Fan was second in 54.25, and Mueller was third in 55.72.

The 100 backstroke showed another 1-2-3 finish from Stanford’s team, with senior Hayden Kwan, sophomore Finn Harland and Liu all touching within 0.30 seconds of each other. Kwan won the event in 49.40. 

After the first day of competition, Stanford led the standings with 800 points, more than 300 points ahead of second-place University of California, Santa Barbara (479.5). Pacific (360.5) and Seattle (305) finished in third and fourth place, respectively. 

Stanford did not compete on the second day of the meet, which featured the 100-yard freestyle, 1,650-yard freestyle, all 200-yard stroke events (butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke) and the 400-yard medley and freestyle relays. 

The Cardinal will compete in their first home meet at 2 p.m. on Oct. 24 at Avery Aquatic Center against Arizona State and Cal.

Full results from the first day of competition can be found here.

The post Stanford men’s swimming opens season with Stockton sweep appeared first on The Stanford Daily.