Brinton and Cunningham stand out during first day of UNLV Invite

UNLV Invite Results

LAS VEGAS – Ellie Thornbrue Brinton, Casey Cunningham and Kelly Hatanaka led select teams from the BYU swim and dive team to a strong finish during the first day of the UNLV Invite.

"All things considered, I'm proud of the team and I am pretty pleased with the results of the overall day," BYU head swimming coach John Brooks said. "We had a lot of best times and our return missionaries are starting to look really good. We started off a little rocky in the morning, but everyone came together and swam really well tonight."

The morning swimming session featured qualifying events for the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard IM and the 50-yard free. In the six qualifying events, 29 BYU swimmers recorded season highs.

In the 500-yard freestyle prelims, Casey Cunningham, Kelly Hatanaka, David Harlan and James Sorensen all advanced. In the two Cougars earned career best times. Cunningham recorded a career best of 4:57.86 and Sorensen also earned a season best at 4:33.86.

Mariah Lindsay, Thornbrue Brinton, Emily To’o, Kilee Rohlf, Cameron Lindsay and John Morris recorded times to compete in the finals of the 200-yard IM. In the finals, Thornbrue Brinton posted a season best time of 2:04.75. Hatanaka followed with a time of 2:05.71 and Mariah Lindsay at 2:07.26. In the men's 200 IM, Morris also recorded a career best time at 1:53.41.

Kimble Mahler competed during the diving afternoon session earning fourth place on the men's 1-meter with a score of 268.70.

In the first relay event of the day, a team of Mariah Lindsay, Thornbrue Brinton, Hatanaka and Tiare Coker finished the 200-yard freestyle relay with a season high of 1:34.41 to earn fifth place. Later in the evening, the same group raced in the 400-yard medley relay posting a season high of 3:50.94.

The swimming competition continues Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. PST at Jim Reitz Pool with live result available on the swim and dive team schedule page.