Triple Distance Meet
The Triple Distance Meet has develop into a Stanford custom and has been held yearly—besides 2020—since 2002. The uniquely formatted meet sees swimmers damaged into six disciplines: dash freestyle, distance freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and IM. Dash freestyle and stroke swimmers swim a 50/100/200 of their self-discipline, whereas IMers swim the 100/200/400 IM, and distance swimmers race the 200/500/1000 freestyle. There’s additionally a 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay.
Paris Olympians Torri Huske and Jack Alexy made their season debuts on this non-scoring conflict between Stanford and Cal. Huske swept the butterfly occasions because the Cardinal ladies gained 16 of 20 occasions, and Alexy went three-for-three within the males’s dash freestyle bracket.
Huske began her sweep by profitable the primary occasion of the meet, the 50 butterfly. She gained the race by 1.31 seconds, touching in 23.31. Stanford dominated the ladies’s butterfly occasions, with Huske heading up 1-2-3 finishes within the 50 and 100 fly. She gained the 100 fly with a 51.63, touching forward of senior Lillie Nordmann (53.47) and freshman Annika Parke (53.99).
The 200 fly was a lot nearer—Huske is a sprinter, whereas Nordmann shines within the 200 fly. Huske used her pace to construct a giant lead however drained on the ultimate 50 yards, splitting 31.40. Nordmann put in a late dig with a 30.86 cut up however ran out of room to trace Huske down. The Olympic gold medallist took the win, 1:56.39 to 1:56.98.
She closed out the day by teaming up with Levenia Sim (25.06), Lucy Thomas (26.86), and Anna Shaw (22.94) to win the 200 medley relay in 1:38.41, contributing a 23.55 butterfly cut up.
Alexy bought the motion began within the males’s dash freestyle bracket with a 19.60 50 freestyle, profitable the race forward of Jonathan Tan’s 19.76. Tan fought again within the 100 free, turning on the midway mark forward of Alexy. However Alexy turned on the jets on the second 50 and powered to the win in 43.39 forward of Tan’s 43.65.
Alexy got here from behind once more to win the 200 freestyle, this time working down teammate Robin Hanson on the ultimate 50 yards with a 24.25 cut up. Alexy clocked 1:37.16, edging out Hanson by a tenth.
Whereas Alexy’s 50 and 100 freestyle instances have been hundredths quicker than he was at this meet final yr, his 1:37.16 within the 200 freestyle is 3.82 seconds quicker than he was final yr—a mark of the dramatic enhancements he made within the occasion final yr, which culminated in him becoming a member of the sub-1:30 membership.
Ron Polonsky’s sweep of the IMs (49.38/1:47.62/3:55.53) was the one different sweep within the males’s disciplines. Nonetheless, on the ladies’s facet, solely the dash freestyle bracket didn’t finish in a sweep.
Isabelle Stadden gained the backstrokes, clocking 24.62/52.82/1:55.71 as she simply collected the win in all three distances. That was the Cal ladies’s solely sweep, because the Stanford ladies, constructing off a season that exceeded expectations, picked up proper the place they left off. Aurora Roghair, Caroline Bricker, and Lucy Thomas have been enormous for the Cardinal final season and opened the 2024-25 marketing campaign by sweeping the gap free, IM, and breaststroke disciplines, respectively. The Stanford ladies return all their particular person NCAA factors from final season and with Huske’s return, they don’t seem like they’ll decelerate any time quickly.
Kayla Wilson was additionally integral to their success as a younger group final season. She gained the 100/200 freestyle (50.71/1:48.89) however completed fifth within the 50 freestyle, as Stanford’s Anna Shaw and Cal’s McKenna Stone tied for the victory in 23.53.
Again on the boys’s facet, Bjorn Seeliger, Matthew Chai, Yamato Okadome, and Rafael Gu every picked up two occasion wins of their bracket. Seeliger swam 22.12/48.03 to win the 50/100 backstroke, however as a pure sprinter, didn’t have sufficient to win the 200 backstroke. As a substitute, it was Stanford senior Aaron Sequiera who gained (1:44.85).
Chai gained the five hundred/1000 freestyle, but it surely was 2023 Worlds qualifier Henry McFadden who claimed the 200 freestyle with a 1:39.44—the one swimmer within the distance bracket to interrupt 1:40. Freshman Yamato Okadome, like Chai, was slower than he was final weekend in opposition to UCSD, however nonetheless claimed two extra collegiate wins, swimming 53.74/1:56.62 within the 100/200 breaststroke. Zhier Fan gained the 50 breaststroke in 24.71, beating Okadome by .12 seconds.
Rafael Gu sprinted to victory within the 50/100 fly (21.08/46.77), whereas Andrei Minakov beat Gabriel Jett in an exciting 200 fly, coming from over a second behind to win in 1:45.08 to Jett’s 1:45.30 and provides Stanford the win in all three fly occasions.
Whereas the Stanford ladies gained 80% of the day’s occasions, the boys’s facet was cut up with ten victories for every program.
Up Subsequent
These two groups gained’t have to attend lengthy to resume their rivalry, as they face off in a two-day tri-meet at Arizona State from Nov. 7-8.
