Additions of Henveaux, Tomac Give Cal Men Well-Rounded Roster For Title Push
Regular followers of college swimming know better than to count out the California Golden Bears at the NCAA Men’s Championships. Perhaps you have heard this statistic, but it’s incredible nature makes it worth repeating: Cal has finished first or second at every national meet since 2010, the third year of Dave Durden’s tenure as head coach. Cal has captured national titles in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Last season, a Leon Marchand-led Arizona State team dethroned the Bears by 79 points, and early on in the 2024-25 campaign, Cal has yet to flash at the level of other top programs. In particular, former Sun Devils head coach Bob Bowman has built a powerful roster in his first season at Texas, with Hubert Kos moving over from ASU while Rex Maurer has developed into a star. Indiana might have its best roster in the recent era, and it was bolstered by the recent addition of Caspar Corbeau.
Cal, meanwhile, did not swim especially fast at midseason while Destin Lasco, a fifth-year swimmer who has captured four individual NCAA titles during his career, did not compete at all. But after Cal raced for the first time in 2025 against USC last week, it’s clear that another title-contending roster is taking shape.
Lasco is the star of the operation, having set American records in the 200 IM (1:37.91) and 200 backstroke (1:35.37) at last year’s championships. Lasco also had the fastest leg of an 800 freestyle relay that swam the fastest time ever, going 1:29.60 as he joined teammates Gabriel Jett, Jack Alexy and Robin Hanson en route to a title.
Keaton Jones at the U.S. Olympic Trials — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Meanwhile, Alexy returns to college swimming fresh off his first Olympic appearance and a short course world title in the 100 free, his status among the country’s top sprinters bolstered. Jett, a three-time A-finalist at last year’s meet, is looking strong in his senior season, having clocked a time of 1:40.06 in the 200 butterfly against USC. Keaton Jones is a budding star after placing fifth in the 200-meter back at the Paris Olympics as a 19-year-old while Dare Rose won World Championship medals in butterfly events before missing the Olympic team by hundredths.
Fifth-year swimmers have come up with big performances for Cal in recent seasons, and in the final season of the COVID-19 waiver, Cal has Lasco, Rose and dependable sprinters Bjorn Seeliger and Matthew Jensen. On the other end of the age spectrum, Yamato Okadome arrives in Berkeley following a prolific junior-level international career in which the native of Japan won medals at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships and World Junior Championships, and Okadome could go a long way toward filling a Liam Bell-sized hole in the breaststroke events.
Now, enter Mewen Tomac and Lucas Henveaux. Cal’s status as “backstroke U” has been reaffirmed in recent years, and now the Golden Bears have three of the best 200 backstrokers in the world on their roster with Lasco, Jones and Tomac, who finished one hundredth ahead of Jones in the Paris final and made the semifinals in the 100 back in Paris.
Henveaux, on the other hand, fills a potential weakness for Cal in the distance events. During his first run with Cal in the 2022-23 season, he placed ninth in the 500 free and 1650 free at the NCAA Championships, and one year later, Cal had only a single scorer between the two events (Jett in the 500). Henveaux also placed just outside of the scoring in the 400 IM, where Cal’s only returning scorer from last year is fifth-year Tyler Kopp, who was 15th.
During his time away from Berkeley, the Belgian swimmer has achieved international success, placing fifth in the 400 free at the 2024 World Championships and recording semifinal appearances in the 200 free at every major meet in the last two years. At the recent Short Course World Championships, Henveaux claimed his first global-level medal with a bronze in the 200 free, and he finished less than a half-second away from the podium in the 400 free. Thus, he has positioned himself for an even greater impact on Cal this time around.
More than two months remain until the NCAA Championships, with a run of conference title meets to come. Cal will contend with NC State in hopes of capturing an Atlantic Coast Conference championship in the Bears’ first year in the geographically-unlikely conference.
But this roster has the pieces to get the dedicated base of bear-suit-wearing alumni excited. And neutral fans can eagerly anticipate the first showdown of a revamped Cal-Texas rivalry at the NCAA Championships: add Henveaux to Lasco, Alexy and Jett in the 800 free relay to go up against the reloaded Texas group featuring Luke Hobson, Chris Guiliano and Maurer. Both teams will surely beat the NCAA record of 6:02.26 set by Cal last year, and perhaps even the 6:00-barrier could be challenged.
Now, with Cal’s patented spring surge upon us, there is no doubt this team will be in the title push for a 15th consecutive national meet.
