Lancers Make Impressive Debut With Wins and Record Times at GCU

Saturday, December 12

Phoenix, Ariz.

11 AM

California Baptist University

Grand Canyon

Photo by: Andrew Shortall

Lancers Make Impressive Debut With Wins and Record Times at GCU

12/12/2020 3:38:00 PM | Swimming and Diving

By: Andrew Shortall, Director of Athletics Communications

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 10^th 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).