Cal Men’s S&D Defeats Indiana, 173-122

BERKELEY – The Cal men’s swimming and diving team kept its strong early season performance going, defeating Indiana, 173-122, Friday (Oct. 11) at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The Golden Bears were paced by senior Jeremy Bagshaw, sophomore Tyler Messerschmidt and freshman Ryan Murphy with two wins apiece.

Cal also captured the opening 200 medley relay (1:28.92, Murphy, sophomore Josh Prenot, senior Marcin Tarczynski, Messerschmidt) and swam the final two events as exhibitions (Prenot finish first in the 200 IM at 1:49.21 and the Bears’ 400 free relay of Messerschmidt, Murphy, junior Fabio Gimondi, junior Seth Stubblefield had the fastest time at 3:00.06).

Another highlight for Cal was the diving of junior Tommy Selby. Selby was second in the three-meter board with a school-record 391.50 (topping the old mark of 381.15 set by Sam Helvie in 2007). Selby was third in the one-meter board with a mark of 302.18.

Bagshaw won the 500 (4:24.56) and 1000 free (9:06.60), Messerschmidt was the top sprint freestyler in capturing the 50 (20.11) and 100 free (44.20), and Murphy won the 100 (47.58) and 200 back (1:43.72). Other individual champions included sophomore Trent Williams in the 200 free (1:38.29), freshman Long Gutierrez in the 200 fly (1:47.72), Prenot in the 200 breast (2:00.11) and Tarczynski in the 100 fly (48.59).

“Josh (Prenot), Ryan (Murphy) and Tyler (Messerschmidt) were impressive in winning two events apiece, while Jeremy Bagshaw continued his strong performances that began towards the end of last year,” said Cal coach David Durden. “Our guys raced hard through all their events today. It was a step up from our first meet against Pacific, which is great to see.”

The Bears will step away from dual meet competition for a couple of weeks before hosting another Big 10 school, Wisconisn, on Friday, Nov. 1 at 1 p.m. at Spieker Aquatics Complex versus Wisconsin. Last season, Cal was undefeated in dual meet competition, going 7-0, including defeating Stanford for the first time since 2005, as well as defeating the Badgers, 158-125, at Spieker Aquatics.

The Bears will again vie for an NCAA crown in 2014 after winning national championships in 2011 and 2012 and finishing as the runners-up in 2013. Leading Cal will be two individual champions from 2012 – Tarczynski (200 individual medley) and junior Will Hamilton (200 butterfly) – plus four members (Fleming, Stubblefield, Gimondi, Messerschmidt) of title-winning relays. Additionally, Cal features standout sophomores Prenot and Jacob Pebley (third in the NCAAs in the 200 backstroke), plus star recruit Murphy, one of the nation’s top young backstrokers who was third in the 200 back at this summer’s U.S. national championships.