Swimmers Finish Third and Final Day of Toshiba Classic

LONG BEACH -- BYU swimmers finished the final day of the weekend long Toshiba Classic Invite Saturday evening.

“I’m satisfied with our efforts this past weekend,” BYU head coach Tim Powers said. “We swam just about how we expected to and improved a lot. Each day we swam progressively faster and pushed for season bests.

We knew that we were swimming in one of the fastest meets in the country, but our swimmers were good not to let that intimidate them. We had about two thirds of our swimmers get season bests against these amazing teams.”

Rachel Grant was one of the swimmers to get a season best and placed the highest for BYU. She placed second in the 200 butterfly with an NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 1:57.82.

“We want our swimmers to build themselves up to the conference championships,” Powers said. “That’s why we just wanted season bests this time around, because we want our swimmers to get personal bests when it really matters.”

The third day of the meet started with the 200 backstroke where Candice Smith touched in a 2:00.28, finishing 12th in the finals.

In the same event, Freshman Jake Taylor placed ninth with his final time of 1:48.34.

In the 100 free, Sara Jayne Baldwin placed 22nd with a time of 51.33 for the women, while Christian Keil placed 18th for the men with a time of 46.09.

Freshman Kim Welch had a season best in the 200 fly, placing 17th with her time of 2:01.95.

In the 400 free relay, the women’s team consisting of Aleesha Miller, Taryn Toolson, Grant and Baldwin placed 11th overall with a time of 3:26.25.

The men’s team of Ryan Krause, John Kendrick, Keil and Taylor finished eighth in the 400 free relay with a final time of 3:03.98.

“We’re looking forward to getting further into conference competition and working our way up to NCAA’s,” Powers said.

The BYU swim team will have a week off before returning from the break to face off with Arkansas and Seattle University on Dec. 3 and 4.