EAST LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The Golden Eagle swim teams are competing at the Collegiate Winter Invitational at East Los Angeles College. On the first of three days of competition, the team posted an impressive 36 season best times, nine personal bests, seven swims moved into the seven All-Time top-10 lists, two relay runner-up finishes and one NCAA "B" qualifying time.
Freshman
Alice Stainer swam a steady and strong 500 yard freestyle to earn that qualifying time, dropping an impressive 4 seconds from her previous best. She finished 5th overall and now has the 4th fastest 500 free in CUI history. She earned an NCAA Division II "B" qualifying time with the effort and is now only the 3rd Golden Eagle to qualify for NCAAs (behind All-American Katelyn Thomas and current teammate,
Ryan Burke).
Jayden Hernandez finished 2nd in the 50 free and his 20.80 swim is 10th all-time in CUI history. He led an impressive showing for the Golden Eagles as Chris Haygood (4th),
Isaiah Phillips (8th),
Jack Harris (14th) and
Landon McIntire (24th) all scored for the team. Jaden's swim is 19/100th of a second off of the NCAA "B" qualifying time.
On the women's side, junior
Hailey Garcia inched closer to breaking the 24-second barrier AND an NCAA qualifying time with a new personal best time of 24.16, good for 13th overall. She moves up to 5th all time for CUI and is 19/100th of a second from the cut.
The relays laid down some fast times as the men's 200 free relay (Jayden, Isaia, Jack, Chris) and the 400 medley relay of Lanis, Jack, Jayden and Chris each took home runner up finishes AND 9th fastest times in CUI history.
The women's "A" and "B" 400 medley relays were explosive today. Georgia,
Bella Garritano,
Ryan Burke and Hailey swam to a 3:55. 68 good for 6th overall and an impressive 4th in CUI history. Right behind them, Aubrie,
Alex Leland,
Aranza Martha and
Nicole Tormey crushed a 3:57.66, grabbing 9th overall and 9th in CUI history! The women's 200 free relay (Nicole, Aranza, Alex, Hailey) finished 8th behind Alex's 23.9 and Hailey 24.0 splits.
