By Sean Griffin on SwimSwam
Cal vs. Stanford (Men Only)
January 30, 2026 Avery Aquatic Center, Stanford, California Short Course Yards (25 yards), *Suited* Dual Meet Full Meet Results (also available on Meet Mobile: “CAL @ Stanford Men”) Team Scores #8 Stanford def. #7 Cal 181-119Friday afternoon brought the anticipated cross-bay showdown between ACC and Bay Area rivals #7 Cal and #8 Stanford in men’s swimming, with the Cardinal men coming away with their fourth victory in five years.
The two teams appear to be heading into championship season with two very different approaches. Stanford is already cranking out best times, while Cal, which is famously hyper-focused on NCAAs and long course racing, looked more like typical dual-meet form.
The 200 medley relay kicked off the day with the Golden Bears edging out the Cardinals, 1:23.68 to 1:24.01. Cal led wire-to-wire, with the quartet of Evan Petty (21.24), Yamato Okadome (23.02), Samuel Quarles (20.61), and Lucca Battaglini (18.80), while the Cardinals’ lineup featured Ethan Harrington (21.74), Zhier Fan (23.44), Rafael Gu (19.87), and Jonathan Tan (18.96).
Gu’s split was particularly impressive: the Cardinals trailed by over nine tenths after the halfway point and he nearly brought the team even going into the final exchange, trimming the margin down to 17 one-hundredths.
Not seeing a (1) next to Stanford on the scoreboard was a rare feat for the rest of the day, as the Cardinals went on to win 11 of the 12 individual events.
Gu himself grabbed two wins, taking the 50 free (19.23) over Battaglini and his teammate Martin Wrede (19.56), and the 100 fly (45.61) ahead of Cal teammates Jack Brown (45.99) and Samuel Quarles (46.36).
In the 50, Gu was just a tenth shy of his 19.13 lifetime best from November’s SMU Invite, while Battaglini and Wrede have career bests of 18.78 and 19.31, respectively, both set at the Minnesota Invite last month. On the fly side, Gu has been as quick as 44.83 this season, Brown’s swim was his first time breaking 46, and Quarles’ personal best of 45.35 was also set in Minnesota.
Stanford junior Henry McFadden was another double event winner, taking the 100 and 200 free with times of 42.30 and 1:32.43.
In the 100, he came from behind, flipping third at the halfway point before grabbing the win over teammate Andres Dupont Cabrera, with Cal sophomore Nans Mazellier (43.03) rounding out the top three. McFadden’s time was just outside his lifetime-best 42.06, while Dupont Cabrera’s season-best of 42.17 from an October dual meet trails only his PB of 41.72. Mazellier’s personal best of 42.04 dates back to the 2024 Minnesota Invite, and his season-best of 42.79 was set in November.
The 200 saw McFadden eek out a win over Golden Bear junior Keaton Jones, who also went sub-1:33 in 1:32.90, while Dupont Cabrera doubled back with a 1:33.16 swim to secure third place points for the Cardinals. McFadden’s time was six one-hundredths quicker than his previous fastest in-season time from this meet last year, though his personal best remains the 1:30.83 he produced at the NCAA Championships last season, where he placed eighth.
Jones’ swim is his third fastest-ever, behind only the 1:32.13 and 1:32.23 he’s posted at the last two NCAA Championship meets, his only other times breaking 1:33. The 200 was a season-best for Dupont Cabrera, whose PB in the event is 1:32.42 from the 2024 Pac-12 Championships.
Stanford’s speed wasn’t the only story of the day, as their distance swimmers more than held their own. The Cardinals went 1-2 in the 1000 free, with freshman Ethan Ekk (8:45.37) getting the win over senior teammate Liam Custer (8:48.99), while the Golden Bear freshman duo of Ryan Erisman (8:53.74) and Julien Rousseau (8:57.24) couldn’t quite stick with the pace over the final 400 yards.
Ekk and Erisman are the school record holders in the event, courtesy of the 8:42.25 and 8:43.48 times they threw down in a head-to-head battle at a tri-meet in early October. As for Custer, he was just 19 hundredths shy of his lifetime best of 8:48.81 from the USC vs. Stanford dual meet just two weeks ago.
Three of the same four faces headlined the 500 free later in the day, with Ekk completing his sweep of the distance freestyles with a time of 4:14.59, nearly four seconds ahead of Cal’s Eduardo Oliveira Moraes (4:18.41), who himself finished nearly three seconds ahead of Erisman (4:21.19) and Custer (4:21.73).
Ekk (4:11.10) and Erisman (4:12.78) have both been much faster so far this season, but Oliveira Moraes’ time represents his first-ever time swimming the event in short course yards. A postseason addition to the Bears’ roster, Oliveira Moraes hails from Brazil and has been as quick as 1:47.6/3:46.2 in the LCM 200/400 free, so with a smooth transition to short course yards he could be a multi-‘A’ final threat at NCAAs.
While Stanford controlled the meet from start to finish, the breaststrokes provided some of the tightest racing of the day, as well as Cal’s only individual win. In the 100, Cal sophomore Yamato Okadome (51.34) took the win, as expected, but was pushed all the way by Stanford senior Zhier Fan (51.57) and Stanford sophomore Daniel Li (51.79).
Okadome’s personal best remains the 50.48 he posted at the Minnesota Invite, which ranks third nationally, while Fan just missed his best time of 51.28 from the SMU Invite.
As for Li, he chopped a tenth off his former best time of 51.89 from last season’s NCAAs. It was a preview of his monstrous 200 breast to come, where he shocked Okadome by grabbing the win, 1:50.79 to 1:51.11, with Stanford sophomore Go Nagaoka (1:53.93) taking third a ways back.
Okadome stamped his authority on the race through the front half, opening in 53.57, but Li kept himself in it, turning less than two tenths behind at 53.76. He then unleashed a lethal 28.40 split on the third 50 to Okadome’s 29.17 to take the lead, and held him off 28.63 to 28.37 on the final 50 to grab the win. His 1:50.79 shaved over a second off his previous best of 1:51.83 from NCAAs last year and broke now-graduated Ron Polonsky‘s school record of 1:50.95 from NCAAs last March.
The swim now ranks Li as the sixth-quickest man in the NCAA so far this season, which positions him in a strong spot to challenge for an ‘A’ final lane at Nationals in March and almost certainly better his 15th-place showing from last year.
While he didn’t get the win, it wasn’t a bad swim from Okadome; it’s actually faster than the 1:52.31 he posted at this same meet last year before going on to clock 1:50.19 for runner-up at the ACC Championships and 1:50.23 for sixth at NCAAs. He’s already lowered his best time this season, going 1:50.04 in Minnesota to slot in at fourth in the NCAA standings.
The 400 free relay capped off the meet, and just like the first event, Stanford led from the very first stroke. The foursome of Dupont Cabrera (43.29), Tan (42.90), Gu (42.48), and McFadden (42.34) touched in 2:51.01, nearly three seconds ahead of the Golden Bears, who fielded Mazellier (44.45), Nikolas Antoniou (42.92), Jones (42.67), and Battaglini (43.80) for a final time of 2:53.84.
OTHER EVENT WINNERS
Stanford freshmen posted a 1-2-3 punch in the 200 IM, with Omer Wiener (1:44.32) leading from start to finish, getting the touch ahead of Jason Zhao (1:44.41) and Ray Liu (1:45.64). Wiener and Zhao have personal bests of 1:43.79 and 1:43.89, respectively, both set in October. Liu, meanwhile, took down his lifetime best of 1:46.38 from May 2024. After trailing Cal’s Jones through the first 150, Liu grabbed a win of his own in the 200 back, logging 1:41.37 with Jones (1:42.06) and Stanford senior Hayden Kwan (1:42.11) less than a second behind. It was a PB obliteration for Liu, who lowered his 1:43.55 former best from the USC vs. Stanford meet earlier in the month. Jones has been 1:40.90 so far this year, while his PB remains 1:38.29. Kwan’s time is a new season-best and puts him less than a second shy of his March 2023 PB of 1:41.37, a good omen as ACCs approach in less than a month’s time. Stanford freshman Finn Harland took a wire-to-wire victory in the 100 back, posting the only sub-46 time of the day at 45.98. Cal graduate student Evan Petty (46.61) also dipped under 47, with Wiener (47.06) quick enough for third. It was Harland’s first time breaking 46 in his career, as he’d been 46.24 in November of both 2024 and 2025. Petty’s personal and season bests are the 44.83 he posted in December, while Wiener was under three tenths shy of his best time of 46.79 from November. Cardinal junior Josh Zuchowski took the lead at the 125-yard mark of the 200 fly and never relinquished it, taking the win in a season-best 1:42.21, just off his personal best of 1:42.04 from last season’s ACC Championships. It was a 1-2 finish for Stanford as Gibson Holmes also broke 1:43 in 1:42.72, with Cal freshman Casper Puggaard (1:43.03) securing third. Holmes’ career best remains the 1:40.67 he threw down to take 24th at last March’s NCAAs, while his season best of 1:42.35 came back in October. As for Puggaard, the Danish swimmer clocked both his personal and season bests of 1:42.30 at Minnesota last month.Next Up
Both teams will next compete at the ACC Swimming and Diving Championships, Feb. 15-21 in Atlanta, Georgia. Diving runs Feb. 15-17, with swimming events following from Feb. 17-21.
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