Sunbirds, Tritons Lead Following PCSC Championships Day 2
Day 2 Finals Results | Team Recaps | Championships Central | Meet Mobile
LA MIRADA, Calif. — After 16 events at the PCSC Championships, the nine-time defending champion UC San Diego women and the Fresno Pacific men lead the team standings. The Sunbird and Triton men both moved up in the standings, while the standings below UCSD on the women's side were shaken up to see FPU and Cal State East Bay move into second and third, respectively, at the end of Day 2 at the Splash! Aquatics Center in La Mirada.
Day 2 Team Standings
| Women | Men |
| 1. UC San Diego, 603 | 1. Fresno Pacific, 580 |
| 2. Fresno Pacific, 493 | 2. UC San Diego, 562 |
| 3. Cal State East Bay, 403.5 | 3. UC Santa Cruz, 526 |
| 4. Azusa Pacific, 400 | 4. Concordia, 412 |
| 5. Pepperdine, 265.5 | 5. Biola, 239 |
| 6. Loyola Marymount, 241 | 6. Soka, 20 |
| 7. Concordia, 219 | |
| 8. Biola, 212 | |
| 9. Alaska-Fairbanks, 186 | |
| 10. Dixie State, 174 | |
| 11. UC Santa Cruz, 131 | |
| 12. Soka, 90 | |
| 13. Arizona Christian, 33 |
Recap
Thursday's finals kicked off with the men's 3-meter diving competition where UC San Diego's Trevor Jackson scored 332.9 points to secure the championship. UC Santa Cruz swept the rest of the podium spots as Ethan Johnson (266.20) and Eli Cirino (232.45) took second and third, respectively, combining to score 55 points for the Banana Slugs in the team competition.
The first swimming event of Day 2 saw Fresno Pacific's Laura Fornshell collect her second title of the meet with a nearly seven-second win in the 500-yard freestyle. Azusa Pacific's Rosalee Mira Santa Ana earned her second runner-up finish of the meet, while UCSD's Haley Hamza snagged the final spot on the podium.
On the men's side, the Tritons swept the top two spots in the 500 free, with Kevin Fink and Zack Reuter finishing one-two in 4:30.29 and 4:33.39, respectively. The Sunbirds' Nathan Bruner was not far behind Reuter, touching the wall in 4:34.85 to claim third.
Cal State East Bay recorded its first win of the 2018 championship meet in the women's 200 individual medley when senior Morgan McClure overcame an early deficit to out-touch FPU's Olga Tovstogan by just over a second. Tovstogan's teammates Daria Belova and Bavindeep Basra came in just behind her in third and fourth, while McClure's teammate Claire Beaty rounded out the top five.
Aleksei Averchenko gave the Sunbirds another win with a first-place finish in the 200 IM, beating out a pair of Tritons, Garrett Tse and Alexander Gilchrist, who took second and third, respectively. Fresno Pacific's Kyle Jones and Andrew Murch finished fourth and fifth to give the team three in the top five and 83 points in the standings.
In the 50 freestyle, Biola earned its first title of the meet as Lisa Tixier (22.98) beat out UC San Diego's Ciara Franke (23.55) by less than a second to claim the win. Franke just barely out-touched teammate Haley Murphy, who joined the pair on the podium after finishing in 23.56.
The men's 50 free saw another close finish as Fresno Pacific's Dmitry Belolipetskiy claimed the championship in 20.30 and UC San Diego's Tenny Chong came in just three-hundredths of a second later in 20.33. The Tritons also took third by way of Kevin Wylder (20.46), while FPU rounded out the top five with fourth- and fifth-place finishes, respectively, from Iskender Baslakov and Austin Hussain.
Thursday's finals session was capped with the 200 freestyle relays. On the women's side, the three teams that finished the day at the top of the standings claimed the podium spots as UCSD (1:33.85) claimed a five-hundredths-of-a-second victory over Fresno Pacific (1:33.90), which narrowly topped Cal State East Bay (1:34.07) by 17 hundredths of a second.
In another closely contested race on the men's side, the Sunbirds took the title with a time of 1:20.62, while the Tritons claimed second place less than three-tenths of a second later in 1:20.90. Biola rounded out the podium spots in 1:25.89.
The championship meet continues with another full day on Friday that will feature finals in women's 3-meter and men's 1-meter diving, the 400 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke and 400 medley relay. Additionally, the para athletes will compete in the 100 backstroke. Prelims are set to begin at 9:30 a.m., while the finals will start with diving at 1:30 p.m. and the para athletes' 100 backstroke at 4:20 p.m.
