School record broken at swimming and diving tri-meet

Stanford’s swim and dive teams competed against Arizona State University and the University of California (UC) Berkeley this past weekend on Oct. 24 and 25. The three teams competed at Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center on Friday and Berkeley’s Spieker Aquatic Complex on Saturday.

With the tri-meet format, the meet is treated as two individual dual-meets. Athletes from all three teams competed as normal, but were scored only against one other team. For example, Stanford was scored against Arizona State without consideration for Cal’s athletes, and a winner was decided between Stanford and ASU. The same system was applied to Stanford and Berkeley, as well as ASU and Berkeley. 

Men’s swimming and diving

The Stanford men picked up a win against rival UC Berkeley, scoring 205 points to Cal’s 134. The team fell to 2024 NCAA Champions Arizona State on the weekend, with the Sun Devils scoring 204 to Stanford’s 134. 

Starting off the meet with a bang, freshman Ethan Ekk picked up his first collegiate win and first Stanford school record in the 1000-yard freestyle, swimming an 8:42.25 to knock over four seconds off of multiple-time All-American Grant Shoults’ (‘21, ‘22) previous record of 8:46.79 from 2022. 

Later that day in his Avery Aquatic Center debut, Ekk added 400 more yards of racing to his schedule in the men’s individual medley, where he placed second to Arizona State’s Michael Hochwalt in the 400 IM by 0.45 seconds. The freshman also placed the highest for the Cardinal in the 200 backstroke, touching fifth in a time of 1:43.64.

Junior Gibson Holmes added another win for the Cardinal in the 200 butterfly, with a time of 1:42.35. Holmes, a distance butterfly/IM specialist, was Stanford’s top finisher in the 200 IM, placing third in 1:45.37. 

Rounding out the first place finishes for Stanford was freshman Gunnar Grubbs, who won the three-meter diving event with a score of 382.85. Grubbs also placed fourth in the one-meter on the boards with a score of 281.30, finishing behind third-place sophomore Misha Andriyuk (302.95). 

In the sprint freestyle events, junior Ethan Harrington, senior Andres Dupont and junior Henry McFadden placed highest for the Cardinal. Harrington placed fourth in the 50 freestyle (19.34), Dupont was third in the 100 distance (42.17) and McFadden finished second in the 200 (1:32.73). 

Rounding out the freestyle events for Stanford’s men, senior Liam Custer finished third in the 500 freestyle with a 4:18.84. 

Seniors Rafael Gu and Hayden Kwan were Stanford’s fastest finishers in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke respectively. Gu finished third in the butterfly event with a 46.22, and Kwan finished fourth in the backstroke event with a 47.56.

Senior Zhier Fan and sophomore Daniel Li were Stanford’s fastest finishers in the breaststroke events, with Fan swimming a 52.44 to place fourth in the 100 and Li touching in 1:53.50 to finish second in the longer 200 distance. 

In each of the four relay events, Stanford fell to Arizona State but finished ahead of UC Berkeley. 

For the 200 freestyle relay, Harrington, junior Jonathan Tan, Dupont and Gu finished third behind ASU’s A and B teams in a time of 1:16.93. As of last weekend, North Carolina State University owned the fastest time in the nation with a 1:16.94. In the 400 relay, the quartet of Dupont, Gu, Tan and McFadden finished third in 2:49.47. In the 800 relay, Ekk, Dupont, freshman Jason Zhao and McFadden posted a 6:18.49 to place second. 

With the 200 medley relay, Stanford came home with another second place finish to ASU, with Harrington (backstroke), Fan (breaststroke), Gu (butterfly) and Tan (freestyle) finishing in a time of 1:24.03. The 400 medley relay was not contested at this meet.

The Stanford men will return to Berkeley’s Spieker Aquatic Complex on Nov. 7 at 1 p.m. for the annual Triple Distance Meet against the Golden Bears. 

Women’s swimming and diving

The Stanford women swept both Arizona State and rival UC Berkeley, defeating the Sun Devils 233-105 and beating the Golden Bears 191-148. 

The Cardinal took home wins in 13 events — two in diving, three relays and eight individually. Junior Caroline Bricker and redshirt-senior Torri Huske both won multiple individual events, combining for five individual event wins on the weekend. 

Bricker, last year’s NCAA champion in the 400 IM and reigning Toyota National Champion in the 200 butterfly, won both the 400 IM (4:04.30) and the 200 butterfly (1:52.83) by over three and a half seconds. Also winning the 200 breaststroke (2:09.18), she turned the tables on Cal swimmer Silje Slyngstadli, who won the 200 breaststroke at the Triton Invite earlier this season. 

Huske, an Olympic gold medalist in the 100 butterfly, took home the win in the same event at Spieker, finishing first with a time of 51.05. Also swimming the 100 backstroke, an event she doesn’t typically swim, Huske posted a lifetime-best 51.62 to win the event and cement herself as the 10th-fastest performer in Stanford history.

In the 100-yard breastroke, senior Lucy Bell swam to a new lifetime best, swimming a 58.29 to shave a hundredth of a second off of her previous best time. Bell, the Stanford school record holder in the 200 breaststroke, now ranks as the second-fastest Cardinal swimmer in the shorter 100-yard distance, behind Sarah Haase ’16. Bell, the reigning NCAA champion in the 200 breaststroke, also placed second in the 200 IM with a time of 1:56.31.

The Cardinal also had a dominant showing on the boards this weekend, taking first through fourth in the three-meter competition, led by freshman Molly Gray with 326.20. Following Gray, senior Emilie Moore (308.50), sophomore Anna Lemkin (270.30) and freshman Ellie Cole (265.40) rounded out the top of the rankings for Stanford. Gray also won the one-meter event with a score of 288.90. 

The Cardinal’s other individual wins came from the sprint freestyles, with freshman Annam Olasewere winning the 50 freestyle in 22.25 and senior Gigi Johnson tying for first in the 100 with a time of 47.89, only 0.14 seconds off of her lifetime best. 

Sophomore Bailey O’Regan, Stanford’s top distance swimmer at this meet, placed sixth and fifth in the 500 and 1000-yard freestyles, swimming a 4:48.32 and 9:48.32 respectively. 

Seniors Kayla Wilson and Natalie Mannion swam to second place finishes in the 200 freestyle and 200 backstrokes. Wilson, the 10th-fastest Stanford swimmer ever in the 200 freestyle, finished behind Berkeley Olympian Claire Weinstein in a time of 1:44.50. Mannion, Stanford’s top swimmer in the 200 backstroke, swam a 1:55.48 to finish second.

The dominant quartet of Huske, Olasewere, Johnson and junior Lucy Thomas finished first in both the 200 (1:27.96) and 400 freestyle relays (3:12.00), with Thomas posting the fastest split of the meet in the 200 freestyle relay (21.62) and Huske doing the same in the 400 freestyle relay (47.32). 

In the medley relay, sophomore Levenia Sim (backstroke), Thomas (breaststroke), Huske (butterfly) and Olasewere (freestyle) won in a time of 1:34.76. Again, both Thomas (25.96) and Huske (22.65) had the fastest respective splits of the event.

Huske, Wilson, Bricker and Olasewere placed second to Berkeley in the 800 freestyle relay, finishing in a 6:57.69.

The Cardinal women will return to Berkeley’s Spieker Aquatic Complex on Nov. 7 at 1 p.m.  for the annual Triple Distance Meet against the Golden Bears.

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