No. 7 Stanford men’s swimming competed in its annual triple distance meet against No. 2 Berkeley last Friday at the Legends Aquatic Center in Berkeley, California. Although unscored, the meet format, which required each swimmer to tackle three distances of the same stroke, provided both teams with the opportunity to gauge their strengths in advance of their final fall performances.
Stanford dominated the distance freestyle races and claimed the overall freestyle event thanks to freshman Johannes Calloni, who placed second in the distance 200-yard (1:40.17) and first in the 500- (4:24.99) and 1000-yard (9:04.09) races. The Cardinal actually claimed the top four spots in the distance 200-yard free led by Grant Shoults (1:37.38), the top three spots in the 500-yard free and five of the top six spots in the 1000-yard free.
Although the Bears won the other five three-race events and narrowly snatched the two relays, the Cardinal were close at their heels over the course of the day.
Kicking off the meet, senior Andrew Liang led Stanford in the 50- and 100-yard butterfly, with times of 21.54 and 47.39, while sophomore William Macmillan (1:48.45) narrowly beat Liang (1:48.70) to claim the Cardinal’s best time in the 200-yard butterfly.
Sophomore Hank Poppe (25.69) tied with junior Matt Anderson for fourth in the 50-yard breaststroke and paced the Cardinal in the 100-yard with a time of 55.17, just ahead of freshman Brennan Pastorek (55.94). Pastorek (2:00.55) led the Cardinal in the 200-yard breast followed by Poppe and Anderson.
Senior Sam Perry (20.19) was Stanford’s fastest in the 50-yard freestyle, finishing in second place. Perry also led the Cardinal in the 100-yard free (43.80) and the sprint 200-yard free (1:39.50), followed by freshman Alberto Mestre and junior Cole Cogswell.
Due to a timing malfunction, there were no individual times recorded in the 50-yard backstroke. Sophomore Benjamin Ho paced the Cardinal in both the 100- and 200-yard races with times of 48.56 and 1:47.41.
Freshman Alex Liang nabbed second in the 100- and 200-yard individual medley with times of 50.66 and 1:48.76, ahead of senior Curtis Ogren. Ogren (3:54.61) just beat out Liang (3:55.02) for second place in the 400-yard IM.
The meet concluded with Ho, Poppe, Macmillan and Pastorek (1:29.98) leading Stanford in the 200-yard medley relay and Andrew Liang, Perry, Mestre and Cogswell (1:19.96) leading Stanford in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
The Cardinal will finish their fall season at the Texas Invitational in Austin, Texas from Nov. 29 through Dec. 2. The meet will be partially televised on Longhorn Network.
Contact Sylvie Ashford at sylviash ‘at’ stanford.edu