Lucas Henveaux Clocks Country’s Fastest 1650 Freestyle as Cal Men Take Down Stanford
The Cal men finished up their dual-meet season Friday with the team’s best performance of the season so far. Before the Golden Bears head east to compete in the ACC Championships for the first time, the team took down chief rival Stanford 175-125. This was actually the teams’ third time competing already this season, having previously raced together in the fall Triple Distance meet and at Arizona State.
Lucas Henveaux, who recently returned to Cal for the spring semester following a bronze medal at the Short Course World Championships in the 200-meter free, posted two huge distance performances. He won the 1650 freestyle in 14:29.74, the fastest time in the country this season ahead of Rex Maurer’s 14:30.47 from November. Henveaux also eclipsed the 14:30.57 that Zalan Sarkany swam on the way to winning last year’s NCAA title in the event.
Later in the meet, Henveaux added win in the 500 free in 4:10.82, moving to third in the country behind the Texas duo of Maurer and David Johnston.
A pair of Cal veterans racing in their final home meets after decorated careers posted two wins apiece. Destin Lasco blasted a time of 1:31.85 in the 200 free before going 1:41.68 in the 200 IM. He moved into the national top-10 in both events in the process. Jack Alexy came in first in the 50 free in 19.00, and he was back in the pool to clock 41.61 to finish atop the 100-yard event, improving upon his own season-best time while remaining ranked No. 5 nationally.
Lasco is the reigning NCAA champion in the 200 IM as well as the 200 backstroke, and while he did not race either distance in his preferred stroke Friday, Cal still went 1-2 in both events. Bjorn Seeliger won the 100 in 45.55 ahead of Mewen Tomac (45.72) while Tomac clocked 1:40.30 in the 200-yard event to pull away from Keaton Jones (1:40.30).
In the breaststroke events, Cal freshman Yamato Okadome went head-to-head with Stanford veteran Ron Polonsky. Polonsky pulled off a narrow win in the 100, 51.40 to 51.57, but Okadome returned to post a stellar time of 1:52.31 in the 200 as he held off Polonsky (1:52.53).
Cal’s team of Lasco, Okadome, Dare Rose and Alexy opened the meet in impressive fashion with a time of 1:22.82 in the 200 medley relay, a decisive 19.68 fly split from Rose proving to be the biggest difference. The 400 free relay also went to Cal, with Nans Mazellier, Gabriel Jett, Seeliger and Alexy clocking 2:47.55, with Alexy capping off his meet with a 41.04 anchor split.
In addition to Polonsky’s breaststroke win, the Cardinal got wins from Andrei Minakov in both butterfly events, with times of 1:40.54 in the 200 and 44.83 in the 100. Both wins came at the expense of Golden Beats, with Minakov making up a huge deficit to overtake Jett in the 200 before edging Rose in the 100. In diving, Jack Ryan was victorious in 1-meter (366.00) and 3-meter (426.98).
Race Videos:
100 Breaststroke
200 Breaststroke
100 Butterfly
