GCU gains momentum in Day 3 at WAC

Friday, February 25

Houston, Texas

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

Grand Canyon

WAC Championships

WAC Sports Swimming & Diving Championship

Photo by: Juan DeLeon Creative

2/25/2022 11:48:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving

Day 3 WAC Final Results

2 NCAA B Cuts, 400 medley relay earns bronze

By: Chelsie Davidson

HOUSTON — The Grand Canyon men's swimming and diving team finished Day 3 of the WAC Championships strongly with a move up to fourth place with a total of 409.33 points. The Lopes trail Wyoming (444.33) and are ahead of California Baptist (407.33).

GCU junior Griffin McKean started Friday in the 400-yard individual medley, where he swam a time of 3:51.0 in preliminaries for a Division I B cut and earned the top seed in the "A" finals, where he finished fourth at 3:51.77 and scored big points.

In the 100-yard butterfly preliminaries, Lopes sophomore Jack Armstrong earned a B cut with a time of 47.23 seconds. The Manvel, Texas, native finished fourth in a tough "A" finals race, just .03 seconds from the podium. GCU senior Adrian Curbelo Tejera took eighth in the finals with a time of 47.78.

Lopes senior Samuel McKenzie earned fourth in the 200 freestyle finals with a time of 1:35.87. Senior Florent Janin, sophomore Jacob Folsom and senior Dawson Sloan placed 10th, 11th and 12th in the "B" finals, scoring points for the Lopes.

GCU senior Alonso Carazo Barbero (54.49) and junior Amir Haviv (54.51) swam in the 100 breaststroke "A" final after recording qualifying times in preliminaries.

A trio of Lopes seniors set best times in the 100 backstroke. Dylan Nasser finished fourth in the "A" final with a lifetime best of 48.66. Kainan De Jesus earned ninth (49.56) while teammate Mazen Shoukry finished 16th (52.65) in the "B" final.

GCU sophomore Isaac Poole led the divers in the platform preliminary rounds with a total of 253.60 points to make the cut into finals. Poole faced tough competition, and a missed first dive did not stop him from finishing with "some great diving under challenging circumstances" head diving coach Hunter Shafer said. Poole earned eighth in the finals with 246.20 points.

"He hit some pretty big dives, and I am very impressed with his tenacity," Shafer said.

Lopes sophomore duo Nicholas Gunn and Reece Robles competed in the platform consolation finals, which Gunn won with 260.40 points while Robles placed 12th with 223.55.

To end the night, Nasser, Haviv, Armstrong and Janin won bronze in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:31.11.

The Lopes look to continue progression toward a title in the final day of the WAC Championships on Saturday. Preliminary competition for Day 4 will begin at 9:30 a.m. (Phoenix time) with the finals set to begin at 5 p.m. (Phoenix time).

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