Cougars place second at Mizzou Invite, wrap up day two of Utah Tech Invite

PROVO, Utah — A record-breaking Mizzou Invite came to a close for the BYU swim and dive teams on Friday evening in Columbia, Missouri, with Josue Dominguez and the breaststrokers leading the charge. 

Mizzou Invite

The men's and women's teams both finished the meet in second place with a point total of 911 points for the men and 746 points for the women. The final day of the meet included 25 more personal bests by the swimmers and divers, making it a total of 65 personal-best times set by the athletes over the course of the three day event. 

A total of 10 new top-5 program times were posted during the events in the men's 100-yard butterfly (Tony Puertas, 47.29), 100-yard breaststroke (Evan VanderSluis, 53.03; Will Bonnett, 53.18), 200-yard breaststroke (Will Bonnet, 1:56.66; Evan VanderSluis, 1:57.01), 200-yard backstroke (Diego Camacho, 1:44.65) and 1650-yard freestyle (Abe Barragan, 15:16.97). In the women's 100 and 200-yard breaststroke, Mackenzie Miller set top-five best times as well, swimming a 1:01.08 in the 100-yard event and 2:11.94 in the 200-yard event. 

The Olympian Dominguez and the other breaststrokers were standouts among the Cougars this week. On Friday, the breaststrokers had four NCAA B-Cuts made between the men and women in the 200-yard breaststroke, with five personal-best times being recorded among the swimmers. Emerson Edwards (1:57.88), VanderSluis (1:57.01) and freshman Bonnet (1:56.66) led the way for the men, all receiving NCAA B-Cuts. Sofia Pusceddu (2:20.86) and Miller (2:11.95) set personal-best times as well in the event for the women, with Miller receiving an NCAA B-Cut for her performance. 

In the 200-yard backstroke, career-times were set by Liza Slade (1:59.40) and Emma Marusakova (1:59.10) for the women, along with Andrew Eliason (1:48.91) for the men. Other personal-bests were set by Halli Williams (50.54), Luigi Riva (44.42), Javier Nicolas (43.26) and Barragan (44.71) in the 100-yard freestyle.

The divers had career-best scores set in the platform dive by Carter Davis, Alexia Jackson, and Sophia DeBergh Friday, with Mickey Strauss and Jackson scoring well enough to qualify for the zone cut. 

Utah Tech Invite

As day two of the Utah Tech Invite in St. George Utah, the Cougars found their position in the leaderboard unchanged, as the women (8 points) and men (121) points trail the field. The swimmers combined to post 12 new individual career-best times, nine more times than yesterday's output. 

Events BYU participated in on the day included the 100-yard butterfly, 400-yard IM, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard medley relay (finals session) and 800-yard freestyle relay (finals session). The highest placed finish for the Cougars came in the 200-yard medley relay, as a team of Izaak Hajek, Max Cannon, Jacob Ballard and Jack Burke combined to post a time of 1:32.10 to place sixth in the field.

In the 50-yard backstroke, Hajek (23.48) for the men and Kate Hansen (27.18) for the women swam career-best times to contribute to the Cougar's success. Also in the 100-yard backstroke, Colette Masino (57.40) and Burke (50.19) posted new personal records, with Ballard posting career bests as well in the 100-yard butterfly (48.59) and 100-yard breaststroke (55.15). 

The 200-yard freestyle event featured a career best from women's swimmer Daniel Flores-Bautista (1:54.11). In addition, the new 400-yard IM career-best times were swam by Darwin Anderson (4:03.94) and Kylee Conrad (4:32.64).

With the men's and women's teams in Missouri returning home from the events this weekend, the rest of the team will finish their competition at the Utah Tech Invite on Saturday evening, Nov. 19. Events will begin at the same time as the prior two days, with prelim events beginning at 10:00 a.m. MDT and final events beginning at 5:00 p.m. MDT. Live results of the events can be seen on the MeetMobile app, with a live streaming option found on the schedule tab.