LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) – The UNLV men's and women's swimming and diving teams opened up the programs' annual UNLV Invitational with a combined 24 top-10 event finishes during Saturday's finals session at Jim Reitz Pool.
THE RUNDOWN – WOMEN
*Headlining the Scarlet & Gray swims in the 500 free, freshman
Kayleigh Lovell kicked off the night's individual events with a second-place finish (4:53.20) and the 10th fastest time in program history. Her Rebel freshmen counterparts
Hannah Jones (4:55.76) and
Ashley Hughes, swam side-by-side in the event's 'B' final to take second and third in the heat - which were 10th and 11th overall, respectively.
*Guiding all Rebels in the 200 IM (2:02.77), junior
Ruby Howell dropped her prelims time by almost seven-tenths of a second to finish fourth in the finals. Adding to UNLV's highlights in the event,
Jillian Moses (2:03.75) placed second in the 'B' final and 10th overall, while junior
Tosia Iwanowska (2:05.76) won the 'C' final.
*Notching two more top-10 finishes in the 50 free finals, sophomore
Pilar Cohen sprinted to a sixth-place finish (23.29) and junior
Malia Fernandez (23.61) won the 'B' final for a ninth-place finish.
*UNLV's A team (3:43.39) battled to a second-place finish in the 400 medley relay A final, as Cohen swam anchor leg of 50.7 seconds to hold off third-place finisher Northern Arizona (3:45.03).
*The Rebels also had two of their 200 free relay teams finish inside the top 10, including the A squad's (Cohen, Webb, Sullivan, Fernandez) second-place finish (1:32.78) and B team's (Tonsil, Taylor-Arredondo, Klimek, Bartlett) sixth-place finish (1:35.48).
*In the diving events, junior
Vika Yanovska rounded out the top-5 Rebel women finishes in fourth place (285.45) on the 3-meter springboard.
THE RUNDOWN – MEN
*Claiming a sweep of the top two spots in the 200 IM, freshman Kris Matuszewski (1:48.73) won the race and was followed in a close second by sophomore Mike Breitbart (1:49.80).
*Another Rebel 1-2 sweep came via the men's 1-meter diving competition. Sophomore
Dima Tereshchenko dove his way to a first-place overall score (293.20) and junior
Jamie Spilchak put forth a second-place effort (284.05).
*In the 200 free relay, the Rebel men's A relay unit (Ratiu, Bolanos, Huey, Hemmens) finished first with a time of 1:19.72. Additionally, the Scarlet & Gray B team (Page-Jones, Esenwein, Beji, Butler) took third place (1:21.92).
*Senior Cam Castro (4:29.21), sophomore
Andrew Navarro (4:29.82) and freshman
Hilton Aitken (4:35.09) turned in top-5 efforts in the 500 free, placing second, third and fourth, respectively.
*Speeding their way to another pair of Scarlet & Gray top-3 finishes, junior
George Ratiu's second-place time of 19.75 was good enough for an NCAA B Cut and sophomore
Bryson Huey's 19.92 landed him in third.
*Senior
Steven Butler (20.59) and freshman
Lucas Esenwein (20.89) also recorded top-5 finishes, with the former taking sixth and the latter eighth.
*The swimming events for the night wrapped up with the Rebel A quartet's (Huey, Beji, Ratiu, Hemmens) second-place finish in a tight race with a time of 3:15.35. They reached the final wall within four-tenths of a second of first-place California Baptist (3:14.96))
*The night's top-10 finishes concluded with UNLV's B relay squad (Mickelson, Breitbart, Butler, Matuszewski) in fourth place (3:20.68)
UP NEXT: The UNLV Invitational continues Sunday at Jim Reitz Pool, with prelims at 9:30 a.m. PT and finals at 5 p.m. PT.
