Men's Swimming & Diving | March 08, 2019

Senior Carsten Vissering won his second career Pac-12 title in the 100y breast while senior Alex Valente and junior Mario Koenigsperger also swam in A finals to lead USC at the 2019 Pac-12 Men's Swimming Championships on Friday (March 8) in Federal Way, Wash.
 
USC finished the third night in fifth with 278 points. California is first (644) followed by Stanford (499), Arizona (410), Arizona State (359), USC and Utah (240).
 
Vissering, who won the 2017 Pac-12 title in the 100y breast in 51.45 and who broke his school record earlier this year with a 50.88, shattered his USC standard as well as the Pac-12 meet mark with a winning 50.78. Arizona's Kevin Cordes held the previous meet record (51.23)
 
Vissering led start to finish, hitting the wall 0.60 ahead of Cal's second-place Reece Whitley. The senior from Maryland captured USC's sixth conference title in the specialty and second since 2003. It was his fourth top 2 in the Pac-12 race.
 
Koenigsperger, who was eighth last year in the race, repeated as an A finalist after a morning 52.68, 0.14 off his PR. He proceeded to erase it with a fourth-place 52.22 the final.
 
Senior Billy Monjay posted a PR 53.97 to earn a repeat trip to the 100y breast B final, where he finished seventh (54.31).
 
Valente, in his third career 100y fly A final, finished fifth with a PR 45.80, dropping his best time by 0.15. He secured the final spot with a 46.13 in prelims to earn the third seed.
 
Sophomore Nikola Miljenic, a 50y free A finalist Thursday, finished second in the B final in 46.48. He posted a season-best 46.47 in prelims. Freshman Ariel Spektor finished seventh in the B final (47.64) after a PR in the morning (47.03).
 
The Trojans closed the night with a second-place swim in the 400y medley relay as senior Patrick Mulcare, Vissering, Valente and Miljenic lowered their season-best NCAA A cut to 3:04.62.
 
Freshman Alexei Sancov finished third in the 200y free B final in 1:35.00. He was 11th overall in prelims (1:34.95). Senior Walker Bell posted a PR 1:36.52 in prelims to earn a C swim, where he finished fourth (1:37.33).
 
Junior Mark Jurek was USC's top finisher in the 400y IM, finishing 15th with a 3:51.21, posting a season-best today for the second time after a 3:51.78 in prelims.
 
The meet concludes Saturday with prelims at 11 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m.