After failing to tally any points Thursday, the Sun Devils raced back to put 18.25 more on the board. Two swimmers and two divers combined points Friday night to _____ with 36.5 points.
ASU’s appearances in Friday’s trials started with the 200 freestyle, where sophomore Grant House was seeded fifth, but added time to move to 12th, a time of 1:32.66 sending him to the consolation finals.
Joining him in the consolation finals would be junior Zach Poti, who placed 10th in the 100 backstroke prelims. Poti missed the championship finals by a .05 margin behind Alabama junior Zane Waddell, who went on to lead the Crimson Tide to gold in the 200 medley relay backstroke leg.
Poti’s leadoff split of 21.30 put the Sun Devil 200 medley relay at the top of the heat, but freshmen Elijah Warren and Khalil Fonder couldn’t match the pace of other teams in the heat such as NC State and Louisville. Sophomore Evan Carlson finished with his first sub-19 time in his career, an 18.94 split that couldn’t save the Sun Devils from a 20th place finish.
The swimmers weren’t the only ones to qualify for finals, though. Diving is the unsung hero of meets. Both graduate student David Hoffer and junior Youssef Selim made the finals in the 3-meter competition. Hoffer placed 12th, scoring five team points; Selim finished 16th, good for one. Six more points toward the top-20 campaign.
Both Poti and House improved upon their seed times in the consolation finals. House locked down the 3rd fastest time in ASU history with his 1:32.29, also good for a 10th place finish. House split a 44.72 on the way out, about a third of a second off of his best time set at Pac-12s. Nonetheless, his tie with Indiana junior Mohamed Samy brought the Sun Devils 6.5 more points.
Poti’s long and powerful underwaters propelled him to 3rd place in the 100 backstroke consolations, his time of 45.12 nearly two-tenths of a second off of his Pac-12 gold medal time. His six points tallied 18.5 on the day, the most this team have scored in a day this meet.
Purdue’s time in the 200 medley relay pushed the Boilermakers ahead of ASU, so the Devils were bumped down to 22nd place with one day remaining. The team is 2.5 points out of 21st, 6.5 out of 20th, and 7.5 out of 19th.
Saturday, Zach Poti will swim in the 200 backstroke, sophomore Carter Swift will swim the 100 freestyle, and the meet will conclude with platform diving and the 400 freestyle relay. Grant House does not appear on the psych sheet for the 200 breaststroke.
ASU’s last shot at a top-20 season will start Saturday at 8:00 a.m. PT, with the prelims broadcasted on https://texassports.com