This year in Pac-12 men's swimming and diving
SAN FRANCISCO - Pac-12 men’s swimming & diving teams had another dominant year in the pool, setting multiple new records while adding to the trophy case with national individual titles. Four teams earned top-14 finishes at the 2017 NCAA Championships with CALIFORNIA who led the way in second place and earned a top-two finish for the eighth-straight year. Pac-12 swimmers and divers accounted for 53 of the CSCAA All-America teams (30 first-team honorees, 23 honorable mention honorees).
California’s Ryan Murphy took home Pac-12 Men’s Swimmer of the Year accolades for the third-straight year. ARIZONA STATE’s Cameron Craig was voted Pac-12 Men’s Swimming Freshman/Newcomer of the Year and his coach David Durden was selected as Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year. USC completed the sweep of the diving awards with Dashiell Enos taking home Men’s Diver of the Year, Henry Fusaro was voted Men’s Diving Freshman/Newcomer of the Year and Hongping Li was selected as Men’s Diving Coach of the Year.
California (349) earned a runner-up finish for the second-straight year while STANFORD (242) took fifth place, USC (237) finished in sixth and Arizona State (100) ended up in 14th place overall. ARIZONA finished with 36.5 points for 24th place. Collectively, Conference swimmers and divers totaled two NCAA individual titles, both of which came from California’s Ryan Murphy. Ryan won both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke. He set the NCAA, Championship, American, and U.S. open records in the event the previous year with a time of 43.49. His time in the event this year was just shy of that, 43.99. He also set NCAA, Championship, American, and U.S. Open record in the 200-yard backstroke the previous year with a time of 1:35.73. His time of 1:36.75 was just shy of that, but still good enough for the national title.
The 2017 Pac-12 Championship saw another record-breaking year, with Stanford winning its second league crown in a row and its 33rd overall. The Cardinal scored 784 points to beat California’s 767 points in second place. Depth was a key factor in Stanford winning the title, earning two of three diving first places and getting on the podium in 12 of 18 races. The Cardinal claimed two individual swimming championships, one of which came on Saturday night with freshman True Sweetser winning the 1,650-yard freestyle in 14:35.93, a Pac-12 Championship record that had not been broken since 2003. Freshman Grant Shoults won the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 4:10.67. Arizona State freshman Cameron Craig was named Swimmer of the Meet, an honor voted on by the coaches at the end of the meet after he won two individual events and one relay title over the four days of competition. California senior Ryan Murphy was also honored at the end of the meet as the 2017 Pac-12 Men's Swimming and Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year.