UC – Santa Barbara senior Logan Hotchkiss crushed two huge personal-bests at the 2018 UNLV Invite, likely punching his ticket to the NCAA Championships with a 4:14.55 in the 500 free.
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Hotchkiss actually swam that 4:14 in prelims, scratching out of the final. But the time betters his personal best by a half-second, and is also well under last year’s invite time of 4:16.08. In fact, a 4:14.55 would have placed 12th at NCAAs last year and currently ranks inside the top 8 nationally.
Hotchkiss also won the 200 free in 1:34.93 (though he went a lifetime-best 1:34.80 in prelims) and the 1650 free in 15:03.30. Last year, though, his season-bests in the 200 and 500 free came at mid-season. He was 1:34.9 and 4:15.0 at the Husky Invite in early December, then went 1:35.5 and 4:17.1 at NCAAs, though he did take two seconds off his best mile time at nationals. Hotchkiss should be in the mix for his first career NCAA points, but will have to prove he can back up that 500 time at NCAAs.
The other standout individual was fellow UCSB senior Mason Tittle, who won the 50 and 100 frees. Tittle was 19.43 in prelims of the 50 free, just .07 off of what it took to make NCAAs last year. He won the event with a 19.62 in finals, beating the field by almost half a second. He also won the 100 free in 43.58, within a second of NCAA invite status based on last year’s numbers.
Tittle was great on the relays as well, anchoring the 400 free relay in 42.8, leading off the 200 free relay in 19.7 and swimming fly on both medleys to the tune of 21.0/46.7 splits.
On the women’s side, USC postgrad Kasia Wilk, now competing with Team Rebel Aquatics, had a couple of big swims. She was 21.96 in the 50 free, a new lifetime-best for her by about a tenth. She went 22.0 as a senior at NCAAs. Wilk also won the 100 free in 48.21, though that was almost a second off her lifetime-best from 2016 NCAAs.
CSUB freshman Autumn D’Arcy had a big impact, setting a Cal State Bakersfield school record in the 100 fly. She went 53.50 to win the event over USCB’s Heaven Quintana. D’Arcy is only about a second shy of last year’s NCAA invite time.
Quintana ultimately won the 200 fly (1:58.86) and 100 IM (55.80) on the final day. The 100 IM was officially added by the NCAA as an optional approved event way back in 2015, but has been very sparsely included in NCAA meet orders. Quintana was also only about a half-second off the 100 breaststroke invite time from last year, going 1:01.20 to win. Fresno State’s Manuela Mendolicchio won the 200 breast in 2:12.30, a second and a half from last year’s invite time in that event.
Final Team Scores
Men:
- UCSB – 1020
- Cal Poly – 675
- Pacific – 588
- UNLV – 470
- UCSD – 448
- Fresno Pacific – 312
- CSUB – 261
Women:
- UCSB – 791.5
- Fresno State / UNLV – 616.5
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- Pacific – 522
- UCSD – 417
- Cal Poly – 302.5
- CSUB – 301
- San Diego – 279
- Fresno Pacific – 118