Stanford swimming splits wins in Triple Distance meet against Cal

Athletes from Stanford and the University of California (UC) Berkeley met at Cal’s Spieker Aquatic Complex this past Friday for an annual Triple Distance meet. Consistent with the name, swimmers competed across three distances in one of six disciplines (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, sprint freestyle, distance freestyle and individual medley (IM) events). Stanford women’s swimming beat Berkeley 192.5-131.5, while the men fell to the Golden Bears 158-180. 

Swimming events from longest distance to shortest, those competing in the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and sprint freestyle events swam the 200-, 100- and 50-yard distances of their discipline. Athletes swimming distance freestyle swam the 1000-, 500- and 200-yard freestyles, and swimmers in the IM discipline swam distances of 400, 200 and 100 yards. 

Olympian and redshirt-senior Torri Huske was the sole Cardinal to grab wins in all three of her events, claiming 27 individual points for Stanford in the IM events. Huske touched first in the 100 (52.64), 200 (1:55.13), and 400 (4:04.21) distances, beating Berkeley’s Mia West by less than a second in each race. 

Continuing their streak of breaststroke dominance throughout the season, junior Lucy Thomas and senior Lucy Bell split wins in their series. Thomas, Stanford’s primary breaststroker in the 200 medley relay, took home first in the 50 breaststroke in a time of 26.91. Earlier this year, Bell notched herself as the second-fastest 100 breaststroker in Stanford history with a time of 58.29. This week, she continued to chip at her lifetime best, swimming a 58.27. In the 200 breaststroke, Bell won handily in a 2:04.76, over four and a half seconds ahead of second-place Thomas. 

Also combining for wins in their series were sophomore Levenia Sim and junior Caroline Bricker in the women’s backstroke, and junior Jonathan Tan and senior Andres Dupont in the men’s sprint freestyle. Sim took home wins in the 50 and 100 backstrokes, swimming 24.61 and 52.67 to win her respective events. She also placed second to Bricker in the 200 distance, swimming a 1:55.57 to Bricker’s event winning time of 1:54.50. 

Consistent with most high-level sprint events, the 50 and 100 freestyles came down to hundredths of seconds. Tan won the 50 freestyle for the Cardinal, swimming a 19.45 to out-touch fellow junior Ethan Harrington by 0.07 seconds. Dupont, in the closest finish of the day, finished first in a 42.78, beating Cal’s Nans Mazellier by a margin of 0.01 seconds. Dupont also reached the wall first in the 200 freestyle (1:34.57), rounding out the sprint freestyle sweep for the Cardinal men. 

Sophomores Bailey O’Regan (distance freestyle) and Finn Harland (backstroke) both picked up two out of three wins in their disciplines. O’Regan, in a head-to-head distance duel against Cal’s Ava Chavez, won the 1000 (9:49.73) and 500 freestyles (4:48.44), touching first in the former by over 30 seconds. Harland took home wins in the shorter backstroke events for the Cardinal men, winning the 50 in 21.92 and the 100 in 46.97. 

Senior Liam Custer and junior Gibson Holmes picked up wins in the 400 and 200 IM events, respectively. Custer, in a convincing, three-second win over Cal’s Caspar Puggaard, touched first in a time of 3:46.06. Later on in the day, Holmes cruised to a first place finish in the 200 IM (1:45.70), beating Custer by two seconds. The senior was also the Cardinal’s top finisher in the 100 IM (50.67) following a disqualification from Holmes. 

Rounding out the wins for the Cardinal on the day were senior Gigi Johnson and junior Henry McFadden. Johnson, swimming the sprint freestyles, was Stanford’s top finisher in each of the three events, finishing second in the shorter pair and grabbing the win in the 200 freestyle (1:44.35) over Cal Olympian Mary-Ambre Moluh. McFadden, swimming butterfly, placed fourth in the 50 butterfly (21.88), second in the 100 (47.25), and won the 200 distance in a 1:43.10, over two and a half seconds faster than second. 

Also finishing highest for Stanford were freshmen Ella Jablonski (3rd, 50/100 butterfly), Ella Detter (2nd, 200 butterfly), sophomore Daniel Li (2nd, 200 breaststroke), junior Henry Morrissey (3rd, 200/500 freestyle, 2nd, 100 freestyle) and senior Zhier Fan (3rd, 50 breaststroke, 2nd, 100 breaststroke). 

The Cardinal wrapped the meet in two mixed-gender relays, with both A-teams falling short to Cal’s A-relays. In the 200-yard mixed medley relay, Harrington (backstroke, 21.34), Fan (breaststroke, 23.75), Johnson (butterfly, 22.91) and Thomas (freestyle, 21.66) finished second in a combined time of 1:29.66. The 200-yard mixed freestyle relay, consisting of Dupont (19.87), McFadden (19.39), freshman Olasewere (21.88) and senior Kayla Wilson (22.56), also placed second in a time of 1:23.70. 

The Cardinal divers will compete this weekend at the Texas Diving Invite (Nov. 13-15). The women’s team will return to the pool for the Texas Swimming Invite (Nov. 19-22) and the men’s team will appear next in Dallas for the SMU Invite (Nov. 19-22). 

For complete results from the Triple Distance meet, check here.

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