ST. GEORGE, Utah – Thursday was a really good day for the Eagles at the PCSC Championships. The men's team closed the gap and are now only 21 points out of first place while the women jumped from 8th to 6th and have their sights on a top-5 finish.
Senior diver
Kayla Newman finished her wonderful four-year career with another top-16 finish, this time in the 1m competition. Her 11th place finish earns her 2nd Team All-PCSC honors. First-year diver
Alicia Wintermeyer finished 14th to earn a spot on that team as well.
Meanwhile,
Austin Wade finishes his two-year diving career with an outstanding 4th place finish in the men's 3m competition.
In the 500 free, CUI senior
Faith Silzel dropped nearly two seconds to move up to 22nd place in the final 500 of her career. The entire men's distance group earned spots in the A-final (top-8) after really strong prelims races. In the final,
Kyle Benjamin led from the start and earned his fourth straight 500 free title, the 8th overall individual PCSC crown and his 4:30.72 is an NCAA "B" cut. Helping the team's cause were freshmen
Kyle Stocek in 4th (4:39.99, 10th all time in CUI history), soph
Jon Sutherlin was 6th (4:44.48, season best) and freshman
Joey Molettieri (4:45.00, PR) grabbed 8th. All were named First Team All-PCSC.
The men's 200 IM was good to the Eagles.
Hunter May used a powerful breaststroke leg to move up one spot from his seed and finish second in a season-best time of 1:53.31. This is the 8th fastest time in CUI history. Freshman
Thatcher Grooms also earned a PR (1:55.22) to get 5th and
Jayden Hernandez was 8th (1:55.12p).
In the women's 200 IM,
Hannah Chabin dropped two seconds to post a season best 2:13.86 for 20th and senior
Valeria Ugaz was 23rd in 2:15.50 which was a season best.
In a harbinger of things to come, virtually every one of the 13 women entered for CUI in the 50 free went for season bests or PRs. Leading the way were
Hailey Garcia (24.25p) and
Sara Jones (24.30) who both finished in the top 13. In the "C" final, Victoria Schachle raced to a 24.81 for 21st and
Amelia Brady went 24.90 for 23rd.
In the men's 50 Free, sophomore Chris Haygood (20.94, 6th) and upperclassman
Alberto Cortes (21.14, 8th PR) finaled for the Eagles in a very tight race. In the "B" final, both
Andrew Dimino (21.27, 11th) and
Tim Townsend (21.37, 12th) earned PRs and 2nd Team All-PCSC honors.
The final events were the 200 free relays. The women's quartet of Garcia (24.39), Silzel (23.59), Jones (23.82) and Brady (23.88) were outstanding as they challenged Pepperdine and Cal State East Bay throughout before grabbing the bronze in a NEW SCHOOL RECORD time of 1:35.68. They knocked off the old record set in 2015 by 1/100th of a second!
The men's relay was just as exciting as Haygood, Hernandez, Dimino and Cortes ripped the 5th fastest time in CUI history (1:22.84) to grab another second place to an excellent FPU relay.
The Eagles enter Friday excited for what is to come as some of their best swimmers will compete in their top events out in Utah.
The day gets going at 8:30 a.m. PT (9:30 am MT in Utah) and the finals for the day are at 4:00 p.m. PT (5:00 pm local time in Utah).
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