LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The Western Athletic Conference Men's Swim Championships began Wednesday, with the 200 medley and 800 freestyle relays at the Buchanan Natatorium in Las Vegas, Nev. Seattle U ended day one with 52 points and sixth in the overall standings, while recording two new Top 10 performances.
The Redhawks closed the night with a sixth-place finish in the 800 free relay, as the team of Michael Luna (1:41.50), Connor Barringer (1:39.97), Noa Copp (1:42.61) and Will Corona (1:38.63) touched in at a combined time of 6:42.71. As a result, the quartet recorded the fifth-fastest performance in program-history cutting nearly a half-second from their seed time in the process.
In the 200 medley relay, the Redhawks posted a combine time of 1:31.65, good for sixth. The effort was a near half-second shy of the Seattle U all-time performance. Corona led the SU foursome with a time of 23.39, while Kyle Bailey (25.78), Emmett Moore (22.55) and Tyler Goodspeed (19.93) followed. With his sub 20-second performance in the freestyle, Goodspeed became just the third Redhawk in school-history to accomplish the feature, joining Jordan Anderson and Greg Raper.
In time trails, Blaise Achecar swam 58.42 the 100 butterfly with George Thiss logging a time of 1:00.00 in the 100 breaststroke. Also swimming the 100 breaststroke was Jack Neton who recorded a lifetime-best 55.95 and moved to fourth all-time in program-history. Neton also flirted with NCAA qualification as his performance fell 1.3 seconds shy of the NCAA B-Standard.
"I'm very happy with our strong start," said Seattle U head coach Craig Nisgor. "We had a lot of really good swims tonight and we'll use this to build on for the rest of the week. Also, it was really great to see Tyler and Jack join some elite company in our program's history and that the 800 relay team set Top 10 time."
The WAC Championships will resume Thursday morning with prelims at 11 am PT before returning for finals beginning at 6 pm PT. The prelims will be streamed on the WAC Digital Network (WDN) and on the WAC Sports Facebook page, while the evening session will be available on ESPN+ in the United States and WDN internationally.
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Team Standings
1. UNLV — 80
2. Air Force — 68
3. Californa Baptist — 62
Grand Canyon — 62
5. Wyoming — 56
6. Seattle U — 52