Nikolaev sets new pool record in midst of Lopes' loss to BYU

Saturday, January 14

Provo, UT

12 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Brigham Young University

Nikolaev sets new pool record in midst of Lopes' loss to BYU

1/14/2017 8:52:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving

By: Lisa Amsler

PROVO, UTAH – The Grand Canyon swimming and diving team suffered a setback this weekend against the tough Brigham Young squad, falling 156-142 (men) and 169-131 (women).

"It's never fun being on the short end of the scores, but factoring in the altitude I think we competed very well and put up some very good times," Head Coach Steve Schaffer said.

The men placed first in 10 of their 16 events, with the highlight of the meet being Mark Nikolaev's new pool record in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 47.33. He also won the 200-yard backstroke (1:48.14) and 200-yard IM (1:49.83). Daniil Antipov finished first in three events as well, including the 200-yard freestyle (1:41.74), 100-yard butterfly (49.57) and 200-yard butterfly (1:50.16). One of the newest roster additions, Wiktor Jaszczak, earned points for the Lopes in the distance swims with his top times in the 500-yard freestyle (4:38.37) and 1000-yard freestyle (9:39.01) while Mantas Auruskevicius rounded out the first place finishes on the men's side in the 100-yard breaststroke (57.32) and 200-yard breaststroke (2:06.67).

"The women put up a great fight, but it was a bad day for a few of them to have a bad day," Schaffer added. "I was really impressed with how well our freshmen swam though."

On the women's side, the freshmen accounted for five of their seven wins. Elisha Walker took first in the 500-yard freestyle (5:10.08) and 1000-yard freestyle (10:41.16), Alyssa Christianson won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:06.28) and 200-yard breaststroke (2:21.66) and Rebecca Håkansson won the 200-yard IM (2:07.44).

Jovanna Koens took care of the final two wins with her times of 24.13 in the 50-yard freestyle and 52.25 in the 100-yard freestyle.

Pietro Hufnagel Toscani earned an NCAA Zone Qualifying score of 324.40 in the 3-meter dive while Menna Elmidany earned two, second-place finishes with her scores of 227.55 in the 1-meter dive and 251.40 in the 3-meter.

"BYU has a great diving program, and even though our guys dove season best scores, we were just out gunned," Schaffer continued. "Their program is where we want to be in a few years."

The Lopes are looking forward to a week off from competition before they take on even tougher opponents at Notre Dame's Shamrock Invitational beginning Friday, Jan. 27-Saturday, Jan. 28.