CHUCKARELEI
Liam Bell won the Pac-12 championship in the 200-yard breaststroke on Friday night.
MSWIM3/8/2024 8:48 PM | By: Cal Athletics
Graduate Student Captures First Career Conference Championship
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – Liam Bell is the school’s record-holder in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Now, the graduate student from Atlanta has his first career individual championship at Cal.
Bell won the Pac-12 title in the 100 breaststroke Friday night, giving the California men’s swimming & diving team its first individual crown of the 2024 Pac-12 Championships at Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center.
Bell didn’t match his program record time but still tied Noah Nichols of Virginia for the fastest time in the nation this season at 50.89. Bell set the Cal benchmark at the 2022 NCAA Championships, swimming a 50.50 to take third place.
Bell took the lead immediately off the starting blocks and never relinquished it in a wire-to-wire victory. His win also gave the Bears five straight Pac-12 titles in the 100 breaststroke after Reece Whitley won the championship in each of the previous four years.
Cal placed two other swimmers in the championship final of the 100 breaststroke – Matthew Jensen took sixth at 51.89 and Hank Rivers finished seventh with a time of 52.12.
The Bears also had two finalists in the 100 backstroke as Kai Crews was fifth with a mark of 46.01 and Sebastian Somerset placed eighth at 46.89.
The 2024 Pac-12 Championships wraps up Saturday with the 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, 1,650 freestyle and 400 free relay.