FRESNO, Calif. --- Freshman
Christine Tixier and junior
Chris Stutzman highlightes a solid season-opening effort by the Biola University swim and dive team which kicked off the 2011-12 season at the PCSC Relay and Pentathlon meets on Friday and Saturday at Fresno Pacific University.
The unique meet participated in by the numerous teams in the Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference, consists of two days of compeititon. The first day features 12 different relay events while Saturday consists of a swim pentathlon.
The Eagles performed well in the relays on Friday, but really shined on Saturday in the pentathlon. The swimmers chose to participate in the IM or Freestyle events, then swam all of the events in their discipline with the scores of five individual events added together to determine the top 10 performers.
Biola's freshman
Christine Tixier finished fourth overall in the IM pentathlon for the women, highlighted by a first-place finish in the 100 breastroke. Tixier's 100 breast time of 1:09.56 was nearly two seconds faster than her closest competition.
For the men, junior
Chris Stutzman also placed fourth overall in the freestyle pentathlon. Stutzman's second-place finish in the 25 yard freestyle (10.22), was just .01 seconds behind the fastest swimmer.
There were also several other Biola swimmers who finished in the top ten for their respective pentathlons. Freshman Austin Sarna finished fifth in the IM pentathlon. Freshman Nick Steadman finished eighth in the IM pentathlon, and senior Nathan Roe finished ninth in the freestyle pentathlon.
On the diving side, Biola's divers had a strong first showing as well. Sophomore Austyn Lewis finished second overall in Saturday's diving with Junior Melinda Smith took third and Vanessa Joeckel placed fifth.
“I was extremely impressed with the performance of both our Men's and Women's squad," said head coach Eddie Shepard. "We came out for our first meet of the year and really showed that we're ready to compete.”
Biola returns to competition on October 22nd for the Malibu Invitational hosted by Pepperdine University.
