GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (November 18, 2023) – Northern Arizona Swimming brought back a third-place finish after four days of competition at the 2023 TYR-CMU Invitational hosted by Colorado Mesa University.
The Lumberjacks ended the invitational with 788 team points, which are earned based on places from individual swimming events. NAU trailed host Colorado Mesa, who scored 1,107, and Wyoming, putting up a 968-point second-place finish.
Day four featured five women's individual events, including the 1,650-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke and 200-yard butterfly.
Junior Casey Craffey earned an NCAA 'B' cut for the second time in four days with a first-place result in the 1,650 freestyle, scoring a time of 16:35.27, more than 17 seconds quicker than the next fastest swimmer.
Other NAU representatives in the 'A' final for the 1,650 included senior Francesca Criscione, who finished with a 17:16.09, good enough for fourth place in the event. Helena Robla Alvarez and Samantha Sheridan were eighth and tenth, respectively.
The most successful event for the Lumberjacks on Saturday was the 200-yard butterfly, where senior Maddy Rey's 2:00.74 time was .16 seconds quicker than sophomore Elsa Musselman's second-place finish of 2:00.90.
Northern Arizona had two swimmers qualify for the 'A' final in the 200-yard backstroke. Senior Annie Carlton closed the event with a fourth-place time of 2:01.32, and junior Jamie Dellwardt was two spots behind her in sixth place, scoring a 2:01.49.
Bena Koehn was the lone NAU swimmer who qualified for the final of the 100-yard freestyle and ended with the eighth fastest time in the final, a 51.98.
Placing three of the top eight scores in the 200-yard breaststroke, sophomore Cydnie Perkins led the charge, finishing in third with a 2:18.55 time in the event.
Freshman Trelise Dance's 2:20.40 was fifth, while senior Delaney Phillips had a 2:25.15 in the final to finish in eighth place.
In the lone relay of the day, the NAU 'A' relay of Musselman, senior Sophie Velitchkov, Koehn, and Carlton was the third fastest of the 11 groups.
"It was a fantastic finish to the meet today," head coach Andy Johns said. "Casey Craffey's altitude-adjusted time places her with a time that historically could qualify her for the NCAAs in March. Wyoming and Colorado Mesa are very good teams and provided quality competition that will help prepare us for the WAC Championship in February."
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