GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (November 15, 2023) – In their first swims at the 2023 TYR-CMU Invitational hosted by Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, on Wednesday night, Northern Arizona Swimming currently finds themselves in third place with 113 points, only five points behind second-place Colorado School of Mines and 99 points back of first-place Colorado Mesa.
"It was a good first night of racing after a long travel day," head coach Andy Johns said. "We had lots of season-best times and a few lifetime bests. I look forward to seeing our swimmers race tomorrow morning."
Three women's events made up the first day of the invitational, including the 200-yard medley relay, the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 800-yard freestyle relay.
Earning 32 points in the first event was the NAU Relay A team of seniors Sophie Velitchkov and Caylah Jago, along with sophomore Elsa Musselman and freshman Trelise Dance. In the first relay of the night, the Lumberjacks Relay A team was the third-fastest relay squad of 12.
NAU would also end the second relay of the night, the 800-yard freestyle, with the third-best time in the field with a 7:25.57 performance featuring the likes of seniors Maddy Rey and Annie Carlton and junior Bena Koehn and Musselman.
The other relay team for the Lumberjacks in the 800-relay consisted of juniors Casey Craffey and Helena Robla and underclassmen Gracie Munk and Meropi Eggink scored a 7:30.22 to end the race in seventh place.
Individually, sophomore Samantha Sheridan was the only NAU Swimmer in the 1,000-yard freestyle event and improved her time from a season ago by almost nine seconds with a 10:52.10 to finish eighth overall.
The TYR-CMU Invitational continues tomorrow, with day two of the event kicking off at 10 a.m. with the preliminaries, while the finals will get underway Thursday evening at 5 p.m.
TEAM SCORES
Colorado Mesa – 212
Colorado School of Mines - 118
Northern Arizona - 113
Wyoming - 112
CSU Pueblo - 71
Adams State - 35
Utah - 28
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