Senior Jake Taylor‘s four individual wins powered Brigham Young to the men’s team title at the University of the Pacific Invite, while Nevada got trios of wins from Yawen Li and Teresa Baerens to take the women’s trophy.
Men’s Meet
Brigham Young rolled away with the men’s meet on the back of four individual wins from Jake Taylor.
The senior crushed both backstroke races and the 100 free and 200 IM for the Cougars. Probably most impressive was his 100 back on day 1, where he topped the field by half a second in 48.81. Later in that session, he went 1:52.13 to take the 200 IM.
Saturday, Taylor returned to finish his backstroke sweep with a 1:49.10 in the 200. But before that, Taylor was 45.56 for a narrow 100 free win over freshman teammate Connor Stirling.
Junior Rainer Ng also won multiple events for the Cougar men. On day 1, he topped the 100 fly in 49.95, and he added a 1:50.87 win the 200 fly to open day 1 and complete his sweep of the stroke. Ng would have had three wins were it not for Taylor, as he was second to Taylor in the 100 back at 49.39.
Second at last year’s NCAA Championships, the Cal men only sent a handful of swimmers to Pacific’s invite. Still, the Bears managed to take a win in the 100 breast, with Connor Hoppe putting up one of the meet’s more impressive times at 54.92.
Fellow sophomore Kyle Coan won the 200 free for Cal in 1:40.52.
Brigham Young’s Luis Ventura swept the distance races, going 16:16.59 in the mile and 4:36.10 in the 500 free.
Fresno Pacific’s lone win came in the 200 breast, with sophomore Maksi Scherbakov going 2:03.43.
Host University of the Pacific highlighted its meet with wins in the 400-yard relays to close Friday and open Saturday. Pacific was 3:04.36 in the 400 free relay on day 1, led by a 45.6 split form Georan Meendering. Then on Saturday, they went 1-2 in the 400 medley relay. Makoa Haneberg‘s 50.75 backstroke leadoff and Stewart Harrison‘s 50.39 fly split led the A team to victory in 3:26.00.
Team Scores
- BYU – 1061
- Pacific – 900
- Fresno Pacific – 381
- Cal – 317
Women’s Meet
Yawen Li and Teresa Baerens each won three individual races at Nevada ran away with the women’s meet.
Li’s closest scrape came in her first event, the 100 breast. The Nevada senior was 1:04.93, beating teammate Arantxa Medina by just two tenths.
Li came back on day 2 and doubled up, winning the 200 breast (2:17.90) by a wide margin and the 400 IM (4:21.35) just a few events later.
Baerens, meanwhile, started out hot with back-to-back wins on day 1. The junior was 1:50.28 to pace the 200 free, then came back in the very next women’s event to take the 200 IM in 2:04.22 and deny Li what would be her fourth win. Li was 2:05.19 in that race.
On day 2, Baerens won the 100 free in 51.29, then took second behind Li in the 400 IM with a 4:26.11.
The home team got a pair of individual wins from Kenna Ramey to take second overall. The sophomore was 23.66 to win the 50 free and 55.88 to claim the 100 fly, both on day 1.
Also winning twice was San Jose State’s tough distance swimmer Riley Spitser, who swept the 500 free (4:58.17) and 1000 free (17:15.57).
Fresno State freshman Ugne Mazutaityte was a bright spot, topping the 200 back field in 2:01.40 for Fresno State’s only win of the meet.
Team Scores
- Nevada – 1020
- Pacific – 659
- Fresno State – 578
- San Jose State – 555
- Fresno Pacific – 223
