Grand Canyon vs California Baptist
- Saturday, December 12, 2020
- Fr. Edward A. Reese Aquatic Center, Phoenix, AZ.
- Results
Courtesy: Grand Canyon Athletics
Women’s Recap
Despite only suiting up eight swimmers, the Grand Canyon women’s swimming and diving team earned a 145-145 tie against California Baptist in conference action on Saturday.
The shorthanded Lopes claimed wins in 10 of 16 events in an exciting home meet at Fr. Edward A. Reese Aquatic Center.
After freshman diver Lizzy Mcknight captured the 1- and 3-meter diving events with NCAA zone qualifying scores, the Lopes needed to win the final event to earn the tie. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of redshirt junior Emily Muteti, sophomore Cecelia Mayer, junior Robyn Edwards and freshman Madeline Vindiola defeated CBU with a time of 3 minutes and 28.5 seconds, easily defeating the Lancers by 5.6 seconds.
Muteti was part of two winning relay teams and also claimed victories in the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly. Her time of 54.82 in the 100 butterfly was a pool record.
The Lopes swept a pair of events. In the 100 backstroke, Briana Rittenbach (56.53) led the GCU sweep, followed by Edwards (56.91) and freshman Ellie Mercer (57.64). Edwards won the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:01.69. She was followed by Vindiola (2:06.97) and Mercer (2:08.63).
Other GCU winners included junior Kristina Miletic in the 200 individual medley (2:06.67) and Vindiola in the 200 freestyle (1:52.48).
GCU won the opening 200 medley relay (Rittenbach, Miletic, Mayer, Muteti) with a time of 1:43.96.
In 1-meter diving, Mcknight set a school record with a score of 305.17. The previous mark was set by Sara Castellanos Lamerio in November 2019. Junior Nicole Yeakley finished fourth (250.35) and senior Tasmin Stewart took sixth (202.75).
McKnight won the 3-meter with a score of 278.10. Yeakley finished fifth (184.95) and Stewart finished seventh (145.85).
Men’s Recap
The Grand Canyon men’s swimming and diving team cruised to a 170-130 home victory over California Baptist on Saturday at the Fr. Edward A. Reese Aquatic Center.
GCU set a pair of pool records in the win over CBU. Lopes junior Florent Janin won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 43.87 seconds, besting the previous mark set by Mark Nikolaev in September 2019.
The 400 freestyle relay team of junior Samuel McKenzie, sophomore Omar Elsayd, junior Mazen Shoukry and Janin ended the meet with an exclamation point. The quartet raced to a winning time of 2:58.34, beating the previous mark of 3:00.91 from October 2018.
Sophomore Mikhail Lyubavskiy proved too tough in the distance events, claiming medalist honors in the 1,000 freestyle (9:30.28) and 500 freestyle (4:30.19).
The Lopes swept the 50 freestyle with Janin winning with a time of 20.22. He was followed by Shoukry (20.60) and Elsayd (20.79).
Sophomore Elijah Clements (49.33) led a GCU sweep in the 100 butterfly. Clements was followed by Shoukry (49.38) and junior Alonso Carazo Barbero (49.44).
GCU took the top two spots in the 200 freestyle. McKenzie won the event with a time of 1:37.87. Sophomore Griffin McKean finished runner-up at1:39.51.
The diving team featured a trio of freshmen. Thomas Wesche led the Lopes with a pair of runner-up finishes, just short of NCAA zone qualifying scores.
On the 1-meter board, Wesche finished second with a score of 279.30. Isaac Poole (264.67) and Reece Robles (247.35) followed in third and fourth, respectively..
In 3-meter diving, Wesche placed second with a score of 287.62. Robles (209.92) placed fourth and Poole (209.60) took fifth.
Courtesy: California Baptist Athletics
PHOENIX – California Baptist University swim and dive made its highly-anticipated season debut at Grand Canyon on Saturday.
It was an opener and dual to remember, as the Lancers and Lopes women tied each other with 145 points apiece, while CBU’s men made some history in a close 170-130 loss to GCU.
A total of 15 wins on both sides and several record-setting performances from the men highlighted the day for the Lancers. Buse Topcu and Faith Brazil led the Lancer ladies with a pair of individual wins on Saturday.
Topcu, who missed a large part of the previous season with an injury, showed she’s back in top form with wins in the 500 and 1000-yard freestyles in four minutes, 57.47 seconds and 10:18.72, respectively. Brazil, a sophomore, swept both breaststroke event titles, with times of 1:04.43 in the 100 and 2:20.15 in the 200.
While CBU’s men did not secure the victory, they showed they have a lot of star power with nine event wins and three new pool records in the Edward A. Reese Aquatic Center.
It all started in the first event of the day, as the Lancers’ Jacob Leahy, Scott Tolman, Josh Walters and Brandon Schuster won the 200-medley relay in 1:28.72 to just beat out the previous record set by Grand Canyon in 2017 by a 10th of a second (1:28.82).
Tolman logged another pool record when he won the 200 breast in 1:59.92, which updated the record of 2:00.33 he already owned from 2018. It was Tolman’s first appearance with CBU in over a year after he took the previous season off to focus on Olympic qualifying. He added a win in the 100 breast (55.43) to his credit, as well.
Robert Moseley was responsible for the Lancers’ third record-setting swim of the day with a win in the 200 backstroke (1:48.41), which just bested the previous record (1:48.45). Moseley was another dual winner in the 200 individual medley (1:49.96), and also took third in the 100 back (50.16).
The Lancers’ women also earned wins in the 200 butterfly and 100 freestyle from Kylie Morrison (2:05.51) and Rita Smirnova (52.31). The men also got wins from Adityastha Wratsangka in the 200 fly (1:51.91) and Leahy in the 100 back (49.30).
DIVING IN
Evan Honer showed his phenomenal freshman season was far from an aberration by winning both the 1-meter (312.22) and 3-meter (305.02) diving events with scores over 300 points. Tyler Stevens added another top-three finish on 3-meter (268.87) for CBU.
Madeline Wiese and Kiree Lowe each had two top-three finishes on the day. Wiese took second (266.47) and Lowe third (257.40) on 1-meter. It was a new personal best for Lowe, which moved her up to No. 8 in the program’s top-10 list for the event.
Wiese and Lowe flipped positions on 3-meter, as Lowe (252.45), Wiese (238.35) and Madison Liu (232.12) took second through forth for the Lancers.
“We really counted this opportunity to compete as a great privilege and this was a perfect way for our athletes to get an assessment as to how they compare with an Incredible WAC opponent”, said dive coach Jeff Couto afterwards.
ON THE DEEP END
CBU went deep in a number of events on Saturday. The women went one-two in the 1000 free and 200 fly after respective runner-up finishes from Martha Aguilar (10:34.63) and Nicole Cienega (2:09.81). Alexa Melara took third place in the 100 (1:05.94) and 200 breasts (2:27.56).
Rebeca Oviedo logged three top-three swims in the 200 (second, 1:53.11) and 500 free (third, 5:03.98) and 200 IM (third, 2:12.09).
Four Lancers: Mia Maspers (24.08), Smirnova (24.20), Jenna Washburn (24.58) and Lauren McKenna (24.78) finished second through fifth in the women’s 50 free. They also got individual third-place swims from Washburn in the 100 free (53.32), Lydia Bartlett in the 200 free (1:54.16) and Vianka Hoyer in the 100 fly (57.75).
On the men’s side, the Lancers nearly had a fourth pool record in the 400-free relay. Leahy, Walters, Matthew Niculae and Schuster clocked a pool record of 2:59.88, but it was only good for second place after the Lopes touched first in 2:58.34.
Schuster had two individual top-three swims in the 500 free (second, 4:34.54) and 200 free (third, 1:39.71). David Miller gave CBU the top-two finishers by taking runner-up in the 200 fly (1:52.48). Christian Meyer also took second in the 1000 free (9.48.45), while Leahy placed third in the 100 free (45.12).
