GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (November 18, 2022) — The NAU Swim team built off of its strong showing yesterday with a handful of standout performances on Day 3 of the TYR/CMU Invitational hosted by Colorado Mesa University.
After moving to second place on Day 2, NAU held onto its position with 740 points and only trails the host Colorado Mesa Mavericks.
"We had some great swims today," NAU swim head coach Andy Johns said. "Our swimmers put together meet and pool records, we are excited for the final day tomorrow."
Freshman Elsa Musselman began the day doing exactly that, winning the 100-yard Butterfly preliminary round with a time of 53.87. Musselman swept the event with a win in the finals, finishing in exactly 54 seconds. Junior Caylah Jago followed behind Musselman in both the prelims and the finals, finishing less than a second behind her both times.
Musselman's prelim time was just .01 seconds shy of the school record.
"Start's like that provide such great energy that carry us forward the entire day," Johns said.
NAU's dominance across prelims and finals was evident in the 400-yard IM where Maddy Rey followed up her second-place prelim heat (4:26.70), with a dominating victory in finals where she improved her time to 4:24.43 to defeat the runner-up, Colorado Mesa's Davy Brown, by over three seconds.
Freshman Gracie Munk, winner of the NAU Pentathlon in September, continued the theme of improvement within the day. The third-place finisher in the 100-yard Backstroke prelim (56.18), rose to the top of the charts in the final with a time of 54.79 to defeat prelim-winner Katerina Matoskova, who finished the final in second.
Junior Annie Carlton also improved on her prelim time in the 100-yard back, going from 56.77 to 56.11 in the final to propel her to a third-place finish.
NAU secured its largest share of points with a victory in the 400-yard Medley Relay to close out the penultimate day of the invitational. Anchored by Musselman, NAU's A team of junior Sophie Velitchkov, senior Haley Mayhew and Jago teamed up to defeat Colorado Mesa's A team by exactly one second (3:42.09). The victory secured 40 points for the Lumberjacks, growing their lead to the rest of the field going into the final day of the meet on Saturday.
"Tomorrow will be a tough finish to a great meet," Johns said.
NAU trails Colorado Mesa by 114 points going into the last day of events for the 7-team field on the women's side. The Lumberjacks grew its hold on second place, growing its lead on third-place Colorado School of Mines by exactly 200 points.
The fourth and final day of the TYR/CMU Invitational on Saturday, November 19 will start at 10 a.m. MST for prelims and conclude with finals races starting at 4 p.m. MST.
TEAM SCORES
Colorado Mesa University - 854
Northern Arizona University - 740
Colorado School of Mines - 447
Western Colorado University - 227
Colorado State University-Pueblo - 66
Adams State University - 49
CMU Club Team - 40
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