2024 Purdue Invite
- November 21-23, 2024
- Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Prelims/Finals
- Live Results
- Day 1 Full Results (PDF)
- Day 2 Full Results (PDF)
- Day 3 Full Results (PDF)
- Full Meet Results (PDF)
- Live Results
A deep Purdue women’s team used another distance freestyle event to pull away from the field on Saturday on the final day of their hosted invite while a top-heavy Southern Illinois program may have picked up another qualifier.
On the men’s side, meanwhile, even without a single day three win, Grand Canyon overtook the hosts Purdue to lock up the team title.
Final Team Scores
Women:
- Purdue – 1,326.5
- Florida International – 737
- Grand Canyon – 476.5
- Southern Illinois – 449
- Illinois State – 361
- McKendree – 199
Men:
- Grand Canyon – 949
- Purdue – 924
- McKendree – 746
- Southern Illinois – 422
Women’s Recap
After backstroker Celia Pulido locked up an NCAA invite in the 100 back on Friday, her teammate Olivia Herron may have done the same on Saturday evening in the 200 breaststroke.
She won the race by two-and-a-half seconds, touching in 2:09.13. That broke her own Missouri Valley Conference Record of 2:11.60 set a seek ago at the A3 Invite and also put her well-under the time that it took to get invited to the NCAA Championships in the last two seasons.
That doesn’t guarantee her an invite, as the last two years were a bit of a regression from 2022, where the invite time was 2:09.15, but it does give her a good shot at becoming the second Saluki swimming qualifier for 2025. According to our research, the last time that happened was in 1987 when the team had three All-Americans (Wendy Rick, Karen McIntyre, and Lisa Reinke).
NCAA Invite Times
| EVENT (SCY) | 2020 INVITE TIME | 2021 INVITE TIME | 2022 INVITE TIME | 2023 INVITE TIME | 2024 INVITE TIME | Change |
| 200 breast | 2:10.12 | 2:10.37 | 2:09.15 | 2:09.68 | 2:09.55 | -0.13 |
Herron previously won and set MVC Records in the 200 IM (1:57.70) and 100 breast (1:00.17 prelims) earlier in the meet.
Pulido also became a triple individual winner on Saturday, punching a “B” cut of 1:53.67 to win the final by 1.2 seconds over Purdue’s Abby Marcukaitis. Pulido was as fast as 1:52.3 at NCAAs last year.
Marcukaitis’ swim was a new best time by more than two seconds, clearing the 1:56.96 that she swam at last year’s Big Ten Championships for 17th place. 1:54s historically make A Finals at Big Tens (although the addition of USC and UCLA will shake things up) and Purdue had no swimming A Finalists at last year’s Big Ten Championships.
Marcukaitis led five Purdue swimmers into the top eight in that 200 back, indicative of their depth throughout the meet and the final session. That included a 1-2-3 finish in the 1650 free, headed by Reagan Mattice in 16:31.13 – a five second improvement on her lifetime best.
Her teammate Adele Sands was right with her for the first 800 yards or so before Mattice began powering away for a 12-second margin of victory.
Purdue got another win in the women’s 100 free when Hannah Hill finished in 49.49, just out-touching Maria Brunlehner of Grand Canyon (49.54). Hill previously won the 50 free earlier in the meet in 22.70.
Boilermaker freshman Campbell Scofield gave Purdue their third, and final, win of the meet on Saturday in the 200 fly, winning in 1:58.55. That’s her best time by seven-tenths of a second and moves her to 7th on the school’s all-time list.
Southern Illinois capped the night with another relay win, this time in the 400 free relay. They took a tight battle over Purdue by a margin of 3:18.70 to 3:18.87. The two teams were never separated by more than .22 seconds at the end of any leg of the relay, and they were only .02 apart at the final exchange. From there, Susana Hernandez split 49.45 to hold off Purdue’s Adele Sands on the anchor and secure a win in the last race of the meet.
FIU was 3rd in 3:21.49, notwithstanding a 49.36 split from Diana Santamaria, while Illinois State got a 49.84 anchor split from Mia Snow on their 6th-place relay.
The best split of the event, though, went to Grand Canyon’s Maria Brunlehner, who anchored their 5th place relay in 48.97.
Men’s Recap
In the men’s meet, it was depth that again made the difference – but in a very different way. Grand Canyon had a 5-point deficit headed into the final day of competition, but even without an event win were able to overcome Purdue for the meet title – for example, they had half of the top 8 in the session opening men’s mile.
Among the event winners, Southern Illinois’ Alex Santiago capped his meet with a third win, this time in the 100 free. He touched in 42.32, which knocks a tenth off the best time he swam to win the MAC Championship last season. It also breaks the Missouri Valley Conference Record in that league’s return to men’s swimming competition after a couple of decades absent.
Santiago previously won the 50 free and 100 fly. His 100 free was the closest to an invite standard based on last season, where a 42.19 was the slowest time invited.
He then wrapped his meet with a 42.15 anchor of SIU’s winning 400 free relay (2:53.17). That was a second sprint free relay win for the Salukis.
D2 program McKendree University, which placed 4th at last year’s national championship meet, continued to show up big against a field of Division I opponents. They grabbed two more wins on the final night of the meet, led off by South African sophomore Christian Davidson in the 1650 free.
He won in 15:17.67, almost 14 seconds clear of the field. That’s a new best time that would have placed him 7th at last year’s D2 Championship meet.
Jackson Lustig won the 200 fly in 1:41.54, which is faster than the time he won the NCAA D2 title with last season. His 2023 title-winning time of 1:40.54 is the D2 record.
While the Purdue men couldn’t hang on for the team win, they did get in a few last blasts that paint a bright future. Freshman Blake Rowe won the 200 back in an NCAA “B” standard of 1:43.12. His best time coming out of high school was 1:44.77.
That’s a Purdue freshman record and climbs him to 4th in the program’s all-time depth chart.
Junior Max Blume, meanwhile, won the 200 breaststroke in 1:56.95, more than a second clear of the field. That is just .02 seconds shy of his best time. He is among the Boilermakers who has thrived most under second year head coach Alex Jerden, dropping almost two seconds in this event last year as a sophomore.
And yet these times that Olivia continues to throw down still don’t earn her swimmer of the week for the Missouri Valley. smh
I’d take the honor of NCAA qualifier over a pointless honor of swimmer of the week any day…
That SIU head coach Geoff Hanson has now (likely) qualified four different swimmers, 2 male and 2 female, for NCAAs the past couple years. How has he not been snatched up for a major coaching post at a power conference school yet?!
He’s got a few…marks…on his resume that he needs a few more years of success for folks to forget about. There’s the SIU investigation (which apparently amounted to nothing), and then he’s got a mark from Arizona too which is more of a gray mark than a black mark.
IDK I kind of didn’t think it was that much of a secret at this point but I guess…
News worthy in my opinion. McKendree went 1, 2, 3, in the mens 200 fly with 4 swimmers under division 2 B cut time. Pretty incredible.
Mckendree men’s swimming has been a powerhouse for a while now. Glad people are finally recognizing it.
Just downright embarrassing for Purdue men. Host an invite with all mid majors and don’t even win it. Turning into an unserious program aside from the divers
Purdue men got outscored in the swimming events by McKendree at their own invite. Seems like a few of their guys swam really limited lineups, but that’s not what you want.