2017 Women's Pac-12 Championships

Pac-12 Day Four Prelims: No Ledecky But Stanford Positioned For Title

Pac-12 Day Four Prelims: No Ledecky But Stanford Positioned For Title

Day four prelims at the 2017 Women's Pac-12 Swimming & Diving Championship featured the 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, and 200 butterfly.

Feb 25, 2017 by Maclin Simpson
Pac-12 Day Four Prelims: No Ledecky But Stanford Positioned For Title
Stanford's continued dominance at the 2017 Women's Pac-12 Swimming and Diving Championship in Federal Way, Washington, carried over to Saturday mornings prelims session, while USC, Arizona, and Cal looked to gain some points back and decrease the deficit. We're all set for a very quick final day of racing.

200-YARD BACKSTROKE

It was a great start for Kathleen Baker​, who finished first in a 1:50.11 after a solid performance in the 100 back on Friday night. Janet Hu cruised to a second-place finish, going a 1:51.55 using her stellar underwaters. Following her were teammates Ally Szekely (1:52.15) and Ally Howe (1:52.17) with a third and fourth finish, respectively, to prep Stanford for another big event in Saturday night's finals session.

100 FREESTYLE

Predictably, Simone Manuel led the way into finals with a 47.30, just four-100ths of a second ahead of Louise Hansson​, who finished in a 47.34. Lia Neal (47.37) secured the third spot in the A final, setting things up for a very close finish in Saturday night's session. Stanford and Cal each put two swimmers in the A final, while USC has three and UCLA has one.

200 BREASTSTROKE

Arizona State's Silja Kansakoski hit the wall in 2:07.85 to secure the top seed heading into the finals, dropping over five seconds off her entry time. She was closely followed by two USC swimmers, Riley Scott and Kirsten Vose. Stanford's Kim Williams took the fourth spot, with Cal's Marina Garcia in fifth. Emma Schanz from UCLA was sixth, and two Utah swimmers will round out the A final, with Genevieve Robertson and Stina Colleou both earning top eight finishes.

200 BUTTERFLY

Madison Wright ​of USC makes an impression finishing first in the 200 fly with a 1:53.26, out-touching Stanford sophomore Ella Eastin​, who finished with a 1:53.30. Two Cal swimmers, Katie McLaughlin and Noemie Thomas, secured spots by finishing third and fourth, respectively. Thomas had a great split in the 100 fly (50.10) on Friday for the 400 medley relay. Should we expect her to finish top three tonight?