Lopes men claim 3rd, women 11th at CSCAA nationals

Thursday, March 12

Ocala , Fla.

Grand Canyon

CSCAA National Invitational Championships

Photo by: Deb Schaffer

3/14/2026 9:33:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving

GCU's Volkov, Dooling, Carrey claim gold-medal finishes in Florida

By: Nathan Peters

OCALA, Fla. – The Grand Canyon swimming and diving team delivered a strong performance at the CSCAA National Invitational Championship, securing multiple podium finishes and championship-final performances against a national field.

The Lopes men claimed third place among 30 teams with 631 points while the GCU women took 11th out of 52 teams with 271.5 points.

TAlex Volkov and Carter Dooling captured event titles to the lead the Lopes men. Volkov won the 100-yard butterfly in 46.68 seconds and the 50 backstroke in 21.50. The senior additionally placed fourth in the 100 freestyle (43.69).

Dooling claimed the 200 breaststroke championship in 1 minute, 55.55 seconds and took fifh in the 50 breaststroke (24.48) and third place in the 100 breaststroke (52.79).

On the women's side, senior Paula Martinez finished 10th in the 50 butterfly before a sixth-place finish in the 100 butterfly (53.56) and a bronze finish in the 200 butterfly (1:59.13).

Sophomore Beth Young went 28.33 in the 50 breaststroke to take fifth place.

Taylor Stasny, also a sophomore, went 55.50 to place fifth in the 100 individual medley and 2:14.31 in the 200 breaststroke for ninth.

GCU junior Guillermo Carrey took sixth in the 50 butterfly with a time of 21.44 before a 50 freestyle win at a time of 19.70 seconds.

Fellow Spaniard Mario Perez, a senior, added top-10 finishes in the 50 freestyle (eighth), 200 freestyle (seventh) and the 200 butterfly (second).

Lopes junior Joe Stephenson placed sixth in the 400 individual medley with a time of 3:53.89.

Grand Canyon also delivered several standout relay performances. The Lopes placed second in the 400 medley relay (3:08.42) with Volkov, Dooling and juniors Jasu Ovaskainen and Guillermo Carrey combining for the runner-up finish.

The team added a third-place finish in the 200 medley relay (1:25.77) with Volkov, Dooling, Ovaskainen and Perez, and another third-place result in the 800 freestyle relay (6:31.22) from Carrey, Ovaskainen, senior Eli Cohen and Perez.

GCU freshman Sara Mose placed ninth in 1:41.12 during the championship finals session.

Additional scoring performances came from the diving events at Zone E Championships in Flagstaff, where sophomore Omar Elsayed placed second on platform and fourth on 3-meter, adding key points for the Lopes in the team standings.