Trojans finish first day of Pac-12 championships


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The No. 5 men’s swimming team, finishing less than a second behind the winners of the 200-yard medley and 800-yard free, had a strong showing on the first day of the Pac-12 championships in the East Los Angeles Swim Center in Monterey Park, Calif. on Wednesday.

Tough conference · The USC swim and dive team is ranked No. 5 in the country, but they sit at third place in the Pac-12 conference. - Gary Chien | Daily Trojan

USC currently sits in third place with 64 points. Stanford, who has won the Pac-12 conference championship every year since 1982, is currently in first with 74 points, with California right behind them with 72 points. Arizona sits in fourth with 60 points, followed by Utah and UC Santa Barbara (54), Arizona State (50) and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo(44).

USC started the night with a fourth-place finish in a close 200-yard medley, led by juniors Nick Karpov and Matt Voell, sophomore Vladimir Morozov and freshman Sergio Lujan Rivera, with a time of 1:26.08, less than one second behind first-place California (1:25.09), and .25 behind the school record of 1:25.83. Stanford (1:25.46) and Arizona (1:25.60) finished the race in second and third, respectively. Morozov provided a final push for the Trojans, finishing his 50-yard in 18.43, the fastest individual time in the event by 0.40 seconds.

USC followed up its opening efforts with a second-place finish in the 800-yard freestyle, narrowly missing its second 800-yard free title in three years. The quartet of sophomores Dimitri Colupaev and Jack Wagner and freshmen Chad Bobrosky and Cristian Quintero finished with a time of 6:19.71, an NCAA “A” cut and season-best, but fell short of Stanford’s first place time of 6:18.99.

Colupaev’s opening leg of 1:33.97 started the Trojans off in second, and Bobroksy’s run of 1:34.92 left them 0.90 behind first place. USC was in third entering Quintero’s anchor leg, where he swam a 1:34.91, the fastest final swim that pushed USC ahead of California but wasn’t enough to overcome Stanford.

The Pac-12 Championships continue Thursday at 11 a.m. with the preliminaries for the 500-yard free, the 200-yard individual medley, the 50-yardfree and 1-meter diving.