(Photo: Chuckarelei Studios/Pac-12 Conference)
The Pac-12 swimming championships in Federal Way, WA came to a close this evening. Arizona State had a series of difficult swims, but also many record breaking performances. In the end, ASU finished fifth overall.
On Thursday, ASU had their backs against the wall when no one placed in the championship finals for their events. That day brought morale down for the team as Coach Bob Bowman admitted that the preparation for the Arizona dual meet might have compromised the training for this meet.
However, if any coach can lead his team back to a solid performance it’s Bowman. That is what happened on Friday when three school records went down in the 100-yard backstroke, 100 yard breastroke and the 400-yard medley relay.
Tonight, ASU wanted to finish strong, and they did exactly that. Every championship final featured an ASU swimmer, and sophomore Christian Lorenz finally put the Sun Devils on the podium when he placed third in the 200 yard breastroke.
Three more school records went down this evening with Lorenz and Barkley Perry’s swims. However the performance of the weekend was the last relay when Perry anchored the 4×100 relay to a new school record and a NCAA automatic qualifying time. The team of Perry, Bohus, Duskinas and Martinz placed third and are guaranteed to swim in nation’s championship in three weeks.
Stanford won the entire meet with USC and CAL and Arizona following behind them. The next step for ASU is to return to training and prepare for the NCAA championships.
You can reach Ryan by emailing him at recurry@asu.edu or follow him on twitter with @ryancurry25
