The Denver women stole the headlines from night 1 of the 2015 Summit League Championships at IUPUI when they earned the program’s first ever NCAA Division I Championship relay qualification.
But in the side show, Wednesday’s post-session Time Trials, one Denver man put his name into the column of probable NCAA qualifiers as well.
Racing in a time trial, Denver’s Anton Loncar swam a 1:41.26 in the 200 yard backstroke. That currently ranks him 8th in the country, though most of the big name programs have yet to swim their conference championships, and would have qualified him for each of the last two NCAA Championships with ease.
Loncar, a freshman based out of Hillsboro, Oregon, was a big-time signing for Denver when he committed there, but by already dropping almost six seconds in this 200 back as a freshman, he’s outlived even lofty expectations for his rookie campaign.
His teammate Andrew Torres, a butterflier, will hope to join him – he currently ranks 20th in the country in the 200 fly, though in his Wednesday time trial, Torres wasn’t able to improve his standing, swimming only 1:45.12. It took a 1:43.81 to qualify for NCAA’s in that event last season.
