Grand Canyon Swept UNLV & Cal Baptist In Only Home Meet Of Season

Meet Stats

• Hosted by Grand Canyon
• January 2, 2017
• Score
  • Men
    • UNLV 181, Cal Baptist 177
    • Grand Canyon 170, UNLV 121
    • Grand Canyon 186, Cal Baptist 109
  • Women
    • UNLV 201, Cal Baptist 98
    • Grand Canyon 162, UNLV 137
    • Grand Canyon 189, Cal Baptist 110

Press Release

Courtesy of Grand Canyon Athletics

The Grand Canyon Swimming and Diving team concluded their first and only home meet of the season with dual wins over Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) and California Baptist. The Lopes outscored UNLV 170-121 (men) and 162-137 (women) in addition to defeating Cal Baptist 186-109 (men) and 189-110 (women).

“Our kids really stepped up to the challenge and gave our seniors a fitting send-off for their last home meet,” Head Coach Steve Schaffer said. The team honored Jovanna Koens, Trent Godfrey, Daniel Pope, Jacob Lambros, Connor Shores and Nathon Burwick before kicking off the competition.

The men’s and women’s teams proceeded to dominate in all four relays on top of a combined 14 individual first place finishes. Mark Nikolaev earned yet another D1 B-cut time in the 100-yard backstroke (48.28) as well as a top time of 1:50.11 in the 200-yard backstroke and 1:52.78 in the 200-yard IM. Daniil Antipov also finished first in his three events, including the 200-yard freestyle (1:40.44), 100-yard butterfly (48.88) and 200-yard butterfly (1:50.01). Mantas Auruskevicius’ time of 56.54 in the 100-yard breaststroke and Michael Winfrey‘s score of 288.25 in the 1-meter dive rounded out the blue ribbon events for the men.

Estela Davis Ortiz led the women’s team with three individual wins in the 100-yard backstroke (56.97), 200-yard backstroke (2:02.67) and 100-yard butterfly (56.96) while Jovanna Koens dominated the freestyle events, placing first in the 50- (24.02) and 100-yard freestyle (51.85). The women’s team continued to rack up wins with Rebecca Håkansson’s time of 2:05.84 in the 200-yard IM.

Menna Elmidany and Winfrey earned points for the diving team, both placing second in the 3-meter dive with a scores of 249.60 and 266.30.

“It was nice to get the year started off with a couple of wins,” Schaffer added. “It took a great team effort, but we exceeded our own expectations to beat a very good UNLV team.”

The Lopes will head back out on the road for their next meet against Brigham Young on Saturday, Jan. 14.