Wild Men’s 400 IM Finish Highlights Day 2 of UNLV Invite

2024 UNLV FINIS Invitational

• December 16-18, 2024
• Buchanan Natatorium, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Day 1 Results | Day 1 Recap
• Day 2 Results

The UCLA women continued its run through the competition on Tuesday at the UNLV FINIS Invitational, while the men’s meet saw a diversity of winners from several different programs and a few really exciting finishes.

Women’s Day 2 Highlights

The Bruin women kicked off the session with a 1:36.72 win in the 200 medley relay, which missed their season-best by only .03 seconds.

The first three legs of the relay Fay Lustria (24.72, .05 improvement); Eva Carlson (26.98, .04 second improvement), and Emma Harvey (22.81, .14 second improvement) were all, in fact, faster than they swam at the Ohio State Invite in November. Only the anchor Ana Jih-Schiff added, splitting 22.19 on the freestyle leg, but was still well ahead of her flat-start lifetime best of 22.76, making this a dangerous relay come February and March.

They rolled off that into a seven win day, including swimmers both on that relay and others who weren’t on that relay.

After a season-best in the 200 IM on day 1, Rosie Murphy did the same in the 400 IM on day 2. Her 4:10.56 was four seconds better than she swam at the Ohio State Invite three weeks ago to lead a UCLA 1-2-3-4 finish in the race.

The Bruins took five of the top six spots in the 100 fly, led by Emma Harvey in 53.18; the top four spots in the 100 breaststroke led by Eva Carlson in 59.99 (a quarter-second better than she was at the Ohio State Invite); five of the top six spots in the 100 back led by Harvey again in 52.98; and a win in the 800 free relay in 7:15.85.

Eden Chang then capped the day off with a win in the women’s 1-meter.

It wasn’t a total sweep of the day’s events for the UCLA women: Wyoming sophomore Tara Joyce won the 200 free in 1:46.87, holding-back a late charge from UNLV’s Erika Carlson (1:47.69).

That swim is a season-best for Joyce and the third-fastest swim of her career. She and Carlson finished 1-2 at last year’s Mountain West Conference Championships in this event in 1:46.11 and 1:47.30, respectively, and are now set up for another big battle in February.

Men’s Highlights – Day 2

The men from Division II Colorado Mesa started the second day of the meet as they did the first by winning a relay.

This time it was the 200 medley, adding to their 200 free win on Monday. The team of Andrew Scoggin (21.86), former Cal Bear Forrest Frazier (23.96), Dejan Urbanek (21.04), and Harry Stacey (19.10) combined to just edge out UNLV by a margin of 1:25.96 to 1:26.11.

CMU’s mid-season 1:24.66 is the top time in D2 so far this season.

UNLV freshman Caleb Manning won a thrilling 400 IM in the first individual race of the day. He opened up a gigantic lead on the field early in the race, sitting 3.3 seconds clear after the breaststroke.

But Cal Baptist’s Mark Kovacsics, who was more than seven seconds behind Manning after the butterfly and backstroke legs and six seconds back after the breaststroke leg, roared home in the last 100, splitting 50.32 on the freestyle portion of the race. For perspective, that’s a faster closing 100 than Leon Marchand swam last season when he won the NCAA title (and faster than most of the NCAA finals field).

Watch the wild finish below starting at the 8:15:00 mark.

Pacific’s Javier Lopez-Guillen won the men’s 100 fly in 46.85, which shaves .05 seconds off his previous best time from the Trailblazer Invitational three weeks ago. That extends his lead atop the MPSF rankings this season. Lopez-Guillen was a European Junior Championship finalist over the summer for Spain and was a huge under-the-radar pickup for the Tigers in the offseason.

He’s now within three tenths of Mason Miller‘s 2019 school record of 46.24.

Cal Baptist’s Andrija Petkovic won the men’s 200 free in 1:35.76, which shaves .04 seconds off his season best from November.

UNLV grabbed another nail-biter individual win when the two-time defending WAC Champion Danny Beji won the 100 breast in 53.04, out-touching Cal Poly’s Evan Yoo (53.06).

For Yoo, that’s only .07 seconds behind his best time from the Texas Invitational in November. A junior who didn’t go a best time in this event last season, Yoo has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program’s change in head coaching this season.

Frazier, the Cal transfer, was 3rd in 54.14 for Colorado Mesa.

On his third swim of the day, and after having the best leadoff split on the medley relay, CMU’s Scoggin won the 100 back in 46.91.

His teammate Agata Naskret broke the women’s D2 record earlier in the season and finished 3rd in the women’s event on Tuesday, giving the Mavericks a burgeoning reputation in the event.

UNLV finished the day with a win in the men’s 800 free relay, though this time it was a no-doubt performance. They dominated throughout most of the race, finishing in 6:31.08 and winning by exactly six seconds over Wyoming.

UNLV diver Alejandro Vazquez won the men’s 3-meter with a score of 341.70.

Team Scoring After Day 2

Men

1. UNLV  – 634
2. Colorado Mesa – 565
3. Cal Poly – 399
4. Cal Baptist – 360.5
5. Pacific – 307
6. Wyoming – 268.5
7. Linfield – 16

Women

1. UCLA – 860
2. UNLV – 526
3. Wyoming – 405
4. Colorado Mesa – 311
5. Cal Baptist – 197
6. Pacific – 138
7. Cal Poly – 127
8. Linfeidl – 8