AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Grand Canyon swimming and diving delivered strong performances despite the team losses to Air Force in a two-day meet this weekend.
Sophomore
Taylor Stasny led the Lopes with an impressive individual slate, winning the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:15.93, placing first in the 200 individual medley at 2:04.87 and contributing to GCU's victorious 200 medley relay (1:41.81) and 400 medley relay (3:44.45). Stasny's consistency in breaststroke and IM events paced a deep women's group that posted four top-two relay finishes.
GCU freshman
Paula Martinez Moreno swept the butterfly events, taking first in the 100 butterfly at 55.14 and the 200 butterfly at 2:01.76. Martinez also swam on the winning 200 and 400 medley relays alongside Luna Torre Ayala, Stasny,
Marta Guasp and
Sara Mose.
Mose continued her impressive freshman season with a 50 freestyle victory in 22.92 seconds, while adding legs on both top-two freestyle relays.
The 400 freestyle relay team of
Sara Mendoza, Stasny,
Katelyn Huffman, and Mose placed second in 3:25.76.
On the men's side, GCU's
Guillermo Carrey captured the 100 freestyle title in 44.61 and anchored the Lopes' first-place 400 freestyle relay (3:00.48) with
Mario Perez,
Eli Cohen, and
Trypp Duarte.
Perez added a first-place showing in the 50 freestyle (20.32) and another in the 200 butterfly (1:50.80), while Cohen swam a 21.96 butterfly split on the 400 medley relay, the No. 2 all-time 50 fly split in GCU history.
GCU senior
Alex Volkov finished first in the 100 backstroke with a time of 49.02, and helped the Lopes to first-place finishes in the 100 freestyle relay (1:20.80) and 400 medley relay (3:19.35).
Grand Canyon also earned strong performances from
Omar Elsayed, who won the men's 3-meter diving event with 409.8 points while also winning the platform competition (389.95 points). In addition, the sophomore added a second-place 1-meter finish (336.4 points).
Batu Servi also placed second in the 500 freestyle in 4:38.61.
Despite the team losses of 224-147 (women's) and 208-155 (men's), the meet closed with the Lopes' freestyle relays taking wins — the women finishing first in the 200 with a squad of Mendoza, Huffman, Mose, and
Krisalyn Henderson (1:33.58). The men posted a first-place finish of 1:20.80 in 200 freestyle relay behind Carrey, Volkov, Cohen and Perez.