Trojans finish fourth at Pac-12 championships


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Sophomore Vladimir Morozov won the conference title in the 100-yard freestyle to lead USC on the final day of the Pac-12 championships at the East Los Angeles Swim Center in Monterey Park, Calif.

Morozov, who also won the 50-yard freestyle on Thursday, is the first swimmer in USC history since Joe Bottom in 1977 to sweep the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle at the conference championships.

USC finished the conference meet in fourth place with 517 points. Stanford won its 31st-consecutive team conference title, finishing with 939.5 points, followed by California in second with 808 points and Arizona in third with 543 points. Following USC in the standings was Utah (258.5), UC Santa Barbara (251.5), Arizona State (221.5) and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (120).

The Trojans had three swimmers place in the 100-yard freestyle final after getting four in the 200-yard freestyle on Friday. Morozov finished preliminaries in 42.06 and finished finals in 41.86, beating his school record by .02 and setting the nation’s best time in the event.

Sophomore Dimitri Colupaev took fifth place after finishing 11th last year. Colupaev holds USC’s second-fastest time in the 100-yard freestyle and won the 200-yard freestyle on Friday. Senior Jeff Daniels earned his second career conference finals appearance and first in the event with a personal record 43.56 in prelims and tied for USC’s eighth-fastest time in the event.

Morozov, Colupaev, Daniels and Quintero finished .25 behind Cal in the 400-yard freestyles relay, almost winning USC’s first title in the event since 1979. Morozov started off the event with a 42.03, followed by Colupaev, who got USC off to a lead of 1.99 seconds over Cal, and Daniels, who had USC ahead by more than a second entering the final fourth. But Cal’s Tom Shields caught up to Quintero, helping Cal take first in 2:51.45, the fastest time in the nation.

Quintero took second in the 1,650-yard freestyle in 14:55.58, beating out Cal’s Adam Hinshaw, almost earning an NCAA “A” cut.

Hinshaw took the lead after Quintero led him for the first part of the race. He maintained that lead until the final 50 yards, when Quintero led Hinshaw by .85 seconds to finish ahead of him by .10 seconds.

Senior Julian Bonse and sophomore Nick Johnson finished eighth and ninth in the event with personal records of 15:18.47 and 15:19.11, respectively,

Junior Alex Lendrum finished fourth in the 200-yard backstroke, a career conference-best finish (1:42.42) and his third straight conference final in the event. Sophomore Chase Bloch set a personal record with a 1:44.00 and a 10th-place finish, while freshman Chad Bobrosky and junior Nick Karpov took 17th and 20th respectively.

Freshman Sergio Lujan Rivera made his second straight appearance in a breaststroke final with a season-best prelim time of 2:00.16. Rivera finished eighth in the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:02.91, a day after finishing eighth in the 100-yard breaststroke. Freshman Andrew Malone and senior Will Orlady took 10th and 14th, respectively (1:46.55 and 1:47.70).

Junior Justin DiFederico made the 200-yard fly final for the second straight year, barely missing his personal record in the prelims with a time of 1:45.63. DiFederico took seventh in the final in 1:47.06, with freshman Cary Wright finishing in 15th (1:49.42), and junior Matt Voell finishing in 22nd (1:52.47).