Day 2 brings four podium finishes

Thursday, February 24

Houston, Texas

9:30 A.M. / 7 P.M.

Grand Canyon

WAC Championships

WAC Sports Swimming & Diving Championship

Photo by: Juan DeLeon Creative

2/24/2022 10:28:00 PM | Women's Swimming and Diving

Day 2 WAC Final Results

4 medals earned: 3 individual, 200 free relay champs

By: Chelsie Davidson

HOUSTON - The Grand Canyon women's swimming and diving team earned four medals on day two in the race to a conference title at CRWM Natatorium on Thursday. The Lopes are still in second with 285 points behind NAU's 316 and ahead of CBU's 187.

Emily Muteti, Maria Brunlehner, Kaitlyn Carr and Claire Banic won gold in the 200-yard freestyle after breaking a 23-year-old WAC meet record of 1:30.21 that was set by SMU in 1999. The Lopes also set a new GCU school record with a time of 1:30.05.

GCU relays are a perfect 3-0 against its opponents.

For diving, GCU sophomore Lizzy Mcknight won prelims on the 3-meter springboard with a score of 290.10 points for the finals. Junior Abigail Erickson moved onto finals after scoring 278.80 points.

A native of Kent, Wash., Mcknight earned bronze in finals for her second medal of the meet with a score of 282.35 points. Erickson finished second in the 3-meter event after posting a score of 268.60 points.

"It was a great competition," head diving coach Hunter Shafer said. "Lizzy followed up her podium finish on 1-meter with another third place finish and to pull it out was great. Abbie also was in the finals and dove well."

GCU freshman Shiori Bak scored in her first competition as a Lope. She competed in the consolation finals and finished fifth with a score of 242.40 points. "Shiori made consolation finals and moved up two spots from prelims," stated Shafer. "Looking forward to platform on Saturday."

Day two started the swimmers off in the 500-yard freestyle. Freshman Aleksandra Wegrzynowska swam a 4:54.89 to earn fourth place in the finals, dropping 2.86 seconds off her prelim time.

Individually, Maria Brunlehner crushed the 200-yard individual medley as she went under two minutes (1:59.17) to earn the gold.

Behind Brunlehner, the Lopes racked up some points as the freshman duo in Fruszi Macsok and Maria Chatzi placed sixth and seventh in the A finals. Macsok swam a 2:04.90 while Chatzi came up with a 2:05.04 to end the race.

In addition, sophomores Raphaela Nakashima and Emma Willmer rounded out the event by scoring points in the B final as they took 12^th and 16^th place in the 200 individual medley.

Muteti, a native of Bombolulu, Kenya, secured the silver medal and set a new school record in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22.54 seconds. Teammate Banic placed fourth in the race, scoring points for the Lopes, with a time of 23.14.

In the B final, Carr finished first in the heat and overall, ninth place with a time of 23.16.

The Lopes are back at it again tomorrow for day three of the WAC Championships. Preliminary competition for day two will begin at 9:30 a.m. (Phoenix time) with finals set to begin at 5 p.m. (Phoenix time) every day this week.

Prelims will be livestreamed on wacsports.com/watch with finals set to air on ESPN+.