Cougars compete at Day 3 of Texas Invite

Texas Invite Results-Day 3

AUSTIN, Texas – BYU finished strong in the third day of the Texas Invitational Friday night at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin.

“We had a really good morning and a lot of really good times from our team," BYU head coach John Brooks said. “In meets like these, we want to be making it back to the finals every evening, and building off the success from the preliminaries and we were able to do that today. Now we just need to rest up and go even faster tomorrow to finish strong.”

Among a handful of season-best and lifetime-best times were Kelly Hatanaka, Ellie Thornbrue, Lauren Shaw Taylor, Natalie Bennion, Emma Richards, Stephen Richards, Rainer Ng, Connor Stirling, Connor Anderson and Jake Taylor. A men’s team of Taylor, Richards, Ng and Payton Sorenson also broke a school record in the 200 medley relay event.

The preliminaries on Friday morning featured qualifying events for the 400-yard individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke finals. BYU returned nine swimmers to the 400 IM finals, eight to the 100 fly, five to the 200 free, seven to the 100 breaststroke and a group of 13 to the 100 back finals event.

In the first event of the evening, Hatanaka was the top performer for BYU in the women’s 400 IM, finishing in 4:23.19 for 20th place. Richards was the fastest swimmer for BYU on the men’s side, posting a 3:55.84 for 14th.

Zerlynn Tiang finished the women’s 100 fly event in 55.01 for 21st place, while Ng ended the men’s event in 23rd with a time of 49.37.

In the women’s 200 free, Taylor raced to a 1:50.24, good enough for 16th. On the men’s side, Stirling was the top performer for BYU, finishing in 1:38.22 for 19th place.

Anna Dahl took 16th in the women’s 100 breaststroke event, clocking a time of 1:02.66. Ryan Sorensen finished the men’s event in 55.93, good enough for 18th.

Ashlee Spindler posted a 56.66 in the women’s 100 back for 22nd. Taylor had a stellar performance for the men, clocking a 45.83 and posting one of the top times in the country to take first place for the Cougars.

In the final event of the day, a team comprised of Richards, Hanna Skaggs, Lillian Moore and Thornbrue finished the women’s 200 medley relay in 1:45.14 for 15th place, while Taylor, Richards, Ng and Payton Sorenson took third for the Cougars, clocking a 1:27.42.

The Cougars will compete in the final day of the invite Saturday with the timed trials beginning at 9 a.m. CST, followed by the event finals at 6 p.m. CST. Fans can follow the meet on the live results page and complete results will be posted on the website at the conclusion of the day’s events.