Los Angeles, Calif. – The Tigers left it all in the pool for the final day of the A3 Performance Invitational, winning the 200 Breast prelims and posting impressive times across the board. Overall, the women's team finished in third behind UCLA and UC Santa Barbara with 724.5 total points, while the men put up 508 points.
It was the last meet of the month for the Tigers, who will next compete in the Hoosierland Invitational on December 3-5. The Hoosierland Invitational will feature both the men's and women's teams.
The first event of the day was the 200 Back, which saw Cristina Mardones and Haley Preston finish fifth and sixth in the prelims with times of 2:00.81 and 2:01.38, respectively. Mardones improved on that time in the finals, taking fourth with a finish of 1:59.53. It was the fastest time of the year by a Tiger and just two seconds off the program's all-time record.
For the men, Curtis Klein led the way in the 200 Back with a time of 1:46.35 in the prelims and 1:46.54 in the finals. Each time was good for fourth place in the event and topped the season-best for the Tigers, which was also previously held by Klein.
Vaiva Gimbutyte had a time of 51.85 in the 100 Free to lead the way for the women in the prelims while Stewart Harrison's 45.30 was best for the men. Gimbutyte put up a 51.27 in the finals, setting a new Pacific best this season, while Harrison's 46.07 was the second-best by a Tiger.
Whitney Jorgensen won the prelims in the 200 Breast with a time of 2:16.00, blowing past the Tigers previous best this season. In the finals, Jorgensen took second with a time of 2:15.50, finishing just .05 seconds behind first place. That time was only .20 behind Pacific's best time in program history for the event.
Cameron Franke was the top swimmer for the men in the 200 Breast, finishing in 2:09.75. Lee Ward and Neil Byers were close behind, with times of 2:11.39 and 2:18.95. In the finals, Ward overtook Franke, besting him with a time of 2:07.62 to Franke's 2:09.42.
In the 200 Fly, Nicholas Nord set a new season-best for Pacific with a finish of 1:51.74 in the prelims and 1:52.58 in the finals. Each of those times were faster than any time in the 200 Fly for Pacific this year, giving Nord the top two spots. Nord also topped the previous best in the 1650 Free with a time of 16:45.02, only to have Jerome Gueguen finish even faster with a time of 16:27.98. For the women, Jana Burkard was fastest, finishing in 17:05.44.
The day ended with a fourth-place finish for Pacific's 400 Free Relay team of Gimbutyte, Kenna Ramey, Jorgensen, and Mardones, who put up a time of 3:25.51. The men's team of Miles MacKenzie, Yahav Shahaff, Harrison, and Klein finished in 3:02.07.
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