SEATTLE VS GRAND CANYON VS CAL BAPTIST
- October 4-5, 2024
- Seattle, Wash.
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results
Courtesy: GCU Athletics
SEATTLE – The Grand Canyon swimming and diving team opened the season with four victories after a three-team meet Friday and Saturday with Seattle U and California Baptist.
The GCU men took down the hosting Redhawks 201-111, as well as beating the Lancers 181-134. The Lopes women also opened the season with two wins — 246-66 against Seattle U and 202-112 against CBU.
Opening the season Friday, the Lopes men set the tone early with two pool records.
GCU’s 200-yard medley relay squad of juniors Alex Volkov, Carter Dooling and Eli Cohen, and freshman Mario Perez finished in 1 minute, 29.12 seconds to take first and set the Redhawk Center pool record.
The medley relay team of junior Marta Guasp, junior Paula Martinez Moreno, graduate Raphaela Nakashima and senior Maria Brunlehner opened the 2024-25 season with the victory, touching at 1:43.55 to be more than a second faster than the second-place team.
Guasp also went on to win the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:01.30 as well as the 200 indivdual medley with a time of 2:07.77.
Lopes junior Mohamed Mohamady cruised for the 200 backstroke victory at 1:47.39 seconds, clinching the facility record and first place.
GCU senior Fruzsi Macsok took first place in the 400 individual medley by going 4:28.79.
The Lopes women went 1-2-3 in the 500 freestlye with senior Aleksandra Wegrzynowska (5:05.48) taking first place, sophomore Vivi Criscione (5:06.64) taking second and sophomore Summer Dean (5:12.01) in third.
Criscione and Dean also earned GCU first and second, respectively, in the 1,000 freestyle with times of 10:28.42 and 10:34.81.
All three of Saturday’s pool records came from the Lopes’ relay teams.
Guasp, Nakashima, Martinez Moreno and Brunlehner ignited the day with a 3:45.19 victory in the women’s 400 medley relay before Alex Volkov, Dooling, sophomore Guillermo Carrey and freshman Jasu Ovaskainen finished first in the men’s 400 medley relay by going 3:14.72.
Including relays, Volkov won five races over the weekend with individual vicitories in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.
Martinez Moreno won the 100 butterfly with a time of 55.75 seconds while Nakashima won the 100 breaststroke going 1:03.27.
The final pool record on the successful opening competition for the Lopes came from the first-place 200 freestyle relay of Carrey, Cohen, Alex Volkov and Perez, which touched at 1:21.58.
The Lopes will next meet with fellow Arizona’s Division I programs — Northern Arizona, Arizona and host Arizona State — for an elite meet in Tempe on Saturday.
Full weekend results can be found here.
Courtesy: CBU Athletics
MALIBU, CA & SEATTLE, WA – The California Baptist University men’s and women’s swim & dive teams took on the West Coast this weekend, battling several teams in Seattle and Malibu to different degrees.
SWIMMING
California Baptist split the squad to open the season, taking the bulk of the team to Seattle U for an early conference battle against the Redhawks and Grand Canyon. Both teams dominated the host Redhawks, with the men winning 205 – 103 and the women posting an even more lopsided score of 228.5 – 83.5. However, the Lopes would take the heads-up battle against CBU, 181-134 on the men’s side and 202-112 in the women’s competition.
The Lancers claimed 15 wins in Seattle out of the 34 contested events. A pair of relay wins boosted 13 individual victories, but the story of this trip might be the half-dozen pool records that the Lancers broke over the two-day meet. Both of the relay wins, men’s 400 freestyle and women’s 200 freestyle, earned a spot in the pool record book, with Remi Fabiani’s lead leg in that relay also setting the 100 free record in a time of 44.44. Mark Kovacsics broke the 500 and 1,000 freestyle records on consecutive days, and Sofia Maksimova is the proud new owner of the Redhawk Center Pool 50 freestyle record.
Six other Lancers accompanied the relay wins, Fabiani, Kovacsics, and Maksimova in the winner’s circle in Seattle. Liam Flaherty took the win in the 400 individual medley, Jonathan Reiter won his 200 breaststroke race, Andrew Teh took the dub in his 200 butterfly heat, Naya Koc took the 200 freestyle, and Lynn Henke won the 200 breast. Andrija Petkovic made a very impressive Lancer debut by joining Maksimova and Kovacsics as the only Lancers to win multiple individual races, as he took the titles in the 100 and 200 free.
DIVING
On the boards, the Lancers picked up where they left off last season, with dominant performances on both days of Pepperdine’s Rodionoff Invite. In total, CBU earned seven berths to NCAA Zone Qualifiers in the season-opening meet which covered both springboard events.
CBU claimed each event’s winner and four NCAA qualifying marks on opening day. CBU posted the top-four places in the men’s event, but Gael Jimenez would take the 1-meter title with a score of 382.40. Mario Del Valle finished runner-up in Malibu on Friday, posting a score of 340.15. The two National Qualifiers from a season ago easily hit the NCAA mark and booked their spots in this season’s Zone E Qualifiers in Federal Way, Washington. Nate Warson (284.45) and John Angelovic (282.60) would round out the top four in the competition but narrowly missed NCAA qualifying on Friday.
On the women’s side, a deeper field yielded similar results as Audrey Thordarson-Wehner took the 3-meter crown with a qualifying score of 311.70. Bella Reynolds also made it to the podium and Zone E Qualification with a third-place score of 280.25. Freshman Jade Fontenelle made her collegiate debut on Friday, posting a score of 247.50 for a sixth-place finish.
Saturday saw Mario Del Valle double his Zone E qualifications, winning the men’s 3-meter competition with a score of 346.50. Sophomore Angelovic also reserved a spot in the Zone E Qualifiers on Saturday as his second-place score of 328.25 put him comfortably beyond the requirement. Warson rounded out the podium spots with a 239.70 score.
Thordarson-Wehner joined Del Valle as the Lancer’s double Zone qualifiers this weekend, winning both women’s events by posting a score of 273.30 during Saturday’s 1-meter event. Fontenelle improved on Friday’s debut effort and placed third out of 22 divers with a score of 238.40. Reynolds posted a score of 223.95, which was enough to finish seventh.
