We’re Going Streaking! How Cal Men Have Put Together a Spectacular Run at NCAA Championships
In the first of a series that will focus on streaks in the sport of swimming, Swimming World takes a look at the run by the Cal men at the NCAA Championships. Since 2010, the Golden Bears have either won or finished as runnerup at the biggest meet of the college season.
For the first 12 seasons that a team title was awarded in NCAA Division I swimming and diving, the University of Michigan placed first or second. Since the conclusion of that streak in 1948, no other team was able to record that many consecutive top-two finishes, even as Ohio State, Yale, Indiana, Stanford and Texas all had their own stretches of dominance. USC came the closest, finishing first or second in 16 of 18 meets held between 1960 and 1977.
Cal head coach Dave Durden — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
The team to finally surpass Michigan’s streak would be California, which has earned the first-place or second-place trophy at 14 consecutive NCAA Championships, and the number surely would have been 15 if not for the cancellation of the 2020 national meet because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Head coach Dave Durden took over the program in advance of the 2007-2008 season, and in year three, he had his team finishing second in the country, just 30.5 points behind Texas. The next year, Cal won the first of its six national titles under Durden’s leadership.
The Golden Bears have sustained their dominance over the last decade-and-a-half by finding success across nearly every event at some point or another while producing some of the best swimmers in the United States. During that inaugural runnerup season in 2010, Cal captured three individual titles, all in 100-meter events: freshman Tom Shields in butterfly, Damir Dugonjic in breaststroke and Nathan Adrian in freestyle. Prior to that meet, Cal had not won a relay national title in a decade, but it won all four sprint relays on that occasion. Cal has always received key contributions from international swimmers, and the 2010 team set that trend with Guy Barnea, Martii Aljand and Martin Liivamagi all recording top-three finishes.
The next year, the Bears would go on to earn their first national title since the 1970s as Adrian concluded his sensational collegiate run while Shields, who began his college career best known for his abilities in the 200 free before his freshman butterfly success, added a surprise national title in the 100 backstroke. Shields would finish his career with six individual NCAA wins. In 2012, Marcin Tarczynski (200 IM) and Will Hamilton (200 fly) became surprise national winners as Cal repeated atop the national standings.
Cal backstroke great Ryan Murphy — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Undoubtedly the most successful individual swimmer during this run has been Ryan Murphy, who won four consecutive national titles in both backstroke events while also spearheading three medley relay national wins during his time in Berkeley. Murphy, of course, would become one of the world’s elite backstrokers for the better part of a decade, but Cal’s status as “backstroke U” developed thanks to the run of Golden Bear swimmers who joined him in excelling both nationally and internationally.
In Murphy’s three Olympic appearances, his fellow U.S. representative in the 200-meter back has been a Cal training partner each time: Jacob Pebley in 2016, Bryce Mefford in 2021 and Keaton Jones in 2024. Daniel Carr also won Pac-12 titles in backstroke, and most recently, Destin Lasco became a three-time national champion in the 200 back, breaking Murphy’s American and NCAA records in the event in 2024. Lasco has also accompanied Murphy to international waters in the 200-meter back, doing so at the 2023 World Championships.
During Josh Prenot’s Cal career, he won Pac-12 titles in the 400 IM and one national title, but his greatest success came in the 200-meter breaststroke, when he broke the American record in a win at the 2016 Olympic Trials before taking Olympic silver in Rio. Andrew Seliskar wracked up second-place finishes at the national level before a swimmer-of-the-meet performance in 2019, when he won titles in the 200 IM, 200 free and 200 breast. Ryan Hoffer is the only swimmer since Adrian to win sprint national titles, taking three different events in 2021.
During Durden’s tenure as head coach, Cal has captured national titles in every swimming event except the 500 and 1650 freestyle. The 400 IM was the most recent individual event to get a Cal winner when Hugo Gonzalez swam the fastest time ever for the win in 2022 (in a race that would be the only individual defeat for Leon Marchand at the collegiate level). Cal could not keep pace with Arizona State at the 2024 NCAA Championships, but the Golden Bears did win the 800 free relay for only the third time ever and first since 1986, with Gabriel Jett, Lasco, Jack Alexy and Robin Hanson combining for the fastest time in history.
Cal fifth-year swimmer Destin Lasco — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Cal’s three individual titles last season came from Lasco in the 200 IM and 200 back plus Liam Bell in the 100 breast. While Bell is gone, the Bears have a huge contingent of senior and fifth-year swimmers returning to try to reclaim the national crown from the Sun Devils. That group is led by Lasco and Alexy, who led off the U.S. men’s gold-medal-winning 400 free relay in Paris and has captured multiple World Championship medals in the sprint events. Dare Rose has also captured global level medals in butterfly, and national top-three finishers Jett and Bjorn Seeliger are also in their last year.
Additionally, this year’s Cal team has an underclass roster including Jones, who finished fifth in an Olympic final prior to his sophomore season, and freshman breaststroker Yamato Okadome. Lucas Henveaux and Mewen Tomac joined the team at midseason to provide additional scoring punch for the run at top-two finish No. 15 and potentially title No. 7. Cal has already made a statement by capturing an ACC title in its first year in the conference.
Consider the time that has passed during Cal’s run. Assistant coaches Greg Meehan, Yuri Sugiyama, Chase Kreitler and Matt Bowe have all contributed to title-winning teams before departing to become successful head coaches elsewhere. The times that Cal swimmers posted to finish third in the nation 15 years ago would no longer earn invitation to the national meet: Liivamagi 1:43.05 in the 200 IM, Aljand 52.32 in the 100 breaststroke, Barnea 46.23 in the 100 backstroke.
What has stayed the same is Durden and the track record of showing up to perform at the NCAA Championships. Later this month, expect another top-two result, with a national title well within the Bears’ grasp.
