PCSC Athletes of the Week: Feb. 10
The Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference announced its Athletes of the Week for the week of Feb. 1-7 on Wednesday. Biola secured top honors on the women's side with Katelyn Harper and Ashley Vitale each nabbing the weekly awards. On the men's side, reigning PCSC Male Athlete of the Year Kyle Benjamin from Concordia earned top swimmer for the week and Hunter Cole from Fresno Pacific was the top diver for the week.
WOMEN
Swimmer
Katelyn Harper, Biola: Harper performed impressively, in Biola's commanding dual meet win over Fresno Pacific. To start, Harper swam the butterfly leg for Eagles' 200 Medley Relay A-team, splitting 26.80, in a first-place team effort of 1:48.75. Top in the PCSC, and #23 in the Nation. Katelyn also swam the 200 IM individually, touching in 2:11.07, over five seconds ahead of second-place, and more than 14 seconds ahead of her first opponent. To finish the day, Harper anchored the Biola B-400 Free Relay with a 55.92, holding off a late-push with FPU's A-Relay, and securing the 1-2 finish for the Eagles to end the meet with a 161-54 win. This is Harper's first weekly honor.
Diver
Ashley Vitale, Biola: Vitale led the way to start Biola's Dual Meet vs. FPU. Ashley commanded the diving portion of the meet, scoring 1st place on both the 1 meter and 3 meter springboards with 196.15 on 1m and 198.00 on 3m; both her top scores for the season. This is Vitale's second weekly honors this season and the fourth for her career.
MEN
Swimmer
Kyle Benjamin, Concordia: Following up his excellent start to the season at last week's intrasquad, Benjamin was nothing short of dominating at The Eagles meet at Cal Baptist. He led 1-2 finishes in the 1000 and 500 leading wire-to-wire in both events. His times (9:56.36 and 4:47.78) currently rank #1 in the PCSC. He closed the meet chasing down a CBU swimmer to grab a 2nd place finish in 1:59.40, now sitting less than 1/10 of a second from the top PCSC spot. His 24.0 fly split on the medley relay helped the men to a 3rd place finish. This is Benjamin's first weekly honor this season and the fourth of his career.
Diver
Hunter Cole, Fresno Pacific: Coach Duston Gragg (Diving Coach) said: ''Hunter crushed it at the meet with Biola placing 1st on both 1 and 3 meter (219.6 and 239.5 respectively). As a Coach I am proud to see how much he has grown from last year. Hunter is excited to perform more difficult dives and continue to progress with a dream of chasing down NCAA qualifying score.'' This is Cole's first career weekly honor and the first for the Sunbirds this season.
The PCSC includes institutions from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). All three divisions of the NCAA are represented. Each week, the PCSC coaches nominate and vote on the Athletes of the Week in seven categories: NCAA Division I women, Division II men and women, Division III men and women and NAIA men and women. You can find the Athlete of the Week archive here.
