Additions of Henveaux, Tomac Give Cal Males Neatly-Rounded Roster For Name Push
Common fans of faculty swimming know higher than to depend out the California Golden Bears on the NCAA Males’s Championships. Possibly you will have heard this statistic, however it’s unbelievable nature makes it value repeating: Cal has completed first or moment at each nationwide meet since 2010, the 3rd 12 months of Dave Durden’s tenure as head trainer. Cal has captured nationwide titles in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Final season, a Leon Marchand-led Arizona State workforce dethroned the Bears by way of 79 issues, and early on within the 2024-25 marketing campaign, Cal has but to flash on the point of alternative best methods. Specifically, former Solar Devils head trainer Bob Bowman has constructed an impressive roster in his first season at Texas, with Hubert Kos transferring over from ASU whilst Rex Maurer has advanced into a celeb. Indiana would possibly have its absolute best roster within the contemporary generation, and it used to be strengthened by way of the hot addition of Caspar Corbeau.
Cal, in the meantime, didn’t swim particularly speedy at midseason whilst Destin Lasco, a fifth-year swimmer who has captured 4 person NCAA titles right through his occupation, didn’t compete in any respect. However after Cal raced for the primary time in 2025 towards USC ultimate week, it’s transparent that every other title-contending roster is taking form.
Lasco is the superstar of the operation, having set American information within the 200 IM (1:37.91) and 200 backstroke (1:35.37) ultimately 12 months’s championships. Lasco additionally had the quickest leg of an 800 freestyle relay that swam the quickest time ever, going 1:29.60 as he joined teammates Gabriel Jett, Jack Alexy and Robin Hanson en path to a identify.
Keaton Jones on the U.S. Olympic Trials — Photograph Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
In the meantime, Alexy returns to school swimming contemporary off his first Olympic look and a brief direction global identify within the 100 loose, his standing a number of the nation’s best sprinters strengthened. Jett, a three-time A-finalist ultimately 12 months’s meet, is taking a look robust in his senior season, having clocked a time of one:40.06 within the 200 butterfly towards USC. Keaton Jones is a budding superstar after hanging 5th within the 200-meter again on the Paris Olympics as a 19-year-old whilst Dare Rose received International Championship medals in butterfly occasions prior to lacking the Olympic workforce by way of hundredths.
5th-year swimmers have get a hold of large performances for Cal in contemporary seasons, and within the ultimate season of the COVID-19 waiver, Cal has Lasco, Rose and loyal sprinters Bjorn Seeliger and Matthew Jensen. At the different finish of the age spectrum, Yamato Okadome arrives in Berkeley following a prolific junior-level global occupation during which the local of Japan received medals on the Junior Pan Pacific Championships and International Junior Championships, and Okadome may cross some distance towards filling a Liam Bell-sized hollow within the breaststroke occasions.
Now, input Mewen Tomac and Lucas Henveaux. Cal’s standing as “backstroke U” has been reaffirmed lately, and now the Golden Bears have 3 of the most efficient 200 backstrokers on the planet on their roster with Lasco, Jones and Tomac, who completed a centesimal forward of Jones within the Paris ultimate and made the semifinals within the 100 again in Paris.
Henveaux, however, fills a possible weak spot for Cal within the distance occasions. Throughout his first run with Cal within the 2022-23 season, he positioned 9th within the 500 loose and 1650 loose on the NCAA Championships, and three hundred and sixty five days later, Cal had just a unmarried scorer between the 2 occasions (Jett within the 500). Henveaux additionally positioned simply out of doors of the scoring within the 400 IM, the place Cal’s handiest returning scorer from ultimate 12 months is fifth-year Tyler Kopp, who used to be fifteenth.
Throughout his time clear of Berkeley, the Belgian swimmer has completed global luck, hanging 5th within the 400 loose on the 2024 International Championships and recording semifinal appearances within the 200 loose at each main meet within the ultimate two years. On the contemporary Quick Route International Championships, Henveaux claimed his first global-level medal with a bronze within the 200 loose, and he completed lower than a half-second clear of the rostrum within the 400 loose. Thus, he has located himself for a fair higher have an effect on on Cal this time round.
Greater than two months stay till the NCAA Championships, with a run of convention identify meets to come back. Cal will take care of NC State in hopes of taking pictures an Atlantic Coast Convention championship within the Bears’ first 12 months within the geographically-unlikely convention.
However this roster has the items to get the devoted base of bear-suit-wearing alumni excited. And impartial lovers can eagerly watch for the primary showdown of a remodeled Cal-Texas competition on the NCAA Championships: upload Henveaux to Lasco, Alexy and Jett within the 800 loose relay to head up towards the reloaded Texas team that includes Luke Hobson, Chris Guiliano and Maurer. Each groups will indisputably beat the NCAA document of 6:02.26 set by way of Cal ultimate 12 months, and maybe even the 6:00-barrier might be challenged.
Now, with Cal’s patented spring surge upon us, there is not any doubt this workforce will probably be within the identify push for a fifteenth consecutive nationwide meet.
