FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- The Arizona State men's swimming team finished the Pac-12 Championships late Saturday night in just about the most entertaining and energizing fashion possible.
For a team that will only lose two seniors, the No. 20 Sun Devils truly exemplified how far they've come under head coach Bob Bowman while also showing a glimpse of the exciting future to come.
In the final event of the meet, the men's 400-yard freestyle relay squad -- consisting of juniors Richard Bohus, Tadas Duskinas, Barkley Perry and Thomaz Martins -- beat out USC at the wall by .13 seconds with a time of 2:52.36 to finish in 3rd place. The time blew away the previous ASU record set in 1998 by nearly two seconds, and was also good enough for an NCAA 'A' standard qualifying mark.
About an hour prior, sophomore Christian Lorenz gave ASU it's first podium finish of the week, clocking a 1:55.32 for third place in the men's 200-yard breaststroke. He was just .02 seconds ahead of the fourth-place swimmer from Cal, and his time was also good enough for an NCAA 'B' cut standard.
On the record-breaking side of the evening, Perry was a man on a mission, breaking the 200-yard backstroke school record twice in one day. After swimming a prelim time of 1:42.00 -- which broke the record he set himself by half of a second -- he touched the wall at 1:41.84 in the final for a fourth-place finish and NCAA 'B' standard qualifying time.
In his last swim as a Sun Devil, senior Juan Tolosa made sure his name would be engraved into ASU history. He shaved 28 seconds off his previous best in the 1,650-yard freestyle to set a new school record at 14:55.22, beating the previous record set in 2006 of 14:55.54 by Gal Nevo.
The men's 100-yard freestyle, Bohus and Duskinas swam to fourth- and sixth-place finishes respectively for an extra 28 points for ASU and 'B' cut times for them both.
Over the four days, the Sun Devils set 25 new personal records -- 10 on day two, nine on day three and six on Saturday -- along with knocking down eight school records.
By meet's end, the Devils finished in 5th place with a total of 402 points.
FINAL TEAM RANKINGS
1. Stanford - 8082. USC - 700
3. Cal - 628
4. Arizona - 569
5. Arizona State - 402
6. Utah - 295