ST. GEORGE, Utah — Biola Swim & Dive wrapped up another successful trip to the Pacific Collegiate Swim & Dive Conference Championships on Saturday, seeing the men achieve their third-straight top-3 finish and the women's side place fourth in a massive field.
The men's team accumulated 727 points throughout the four-day meet to place third behind UC Santa Cruz (729.50) and the narrow champs Concordia University Irvine (731). It was a thrilling race between those three programs all week long.
The women's contingent was fourth with 902 points. This was among a field of 15 total programs. They placed just 28.5 points back from rivals APU and finished almost 300 points up on CUI.
Biola saw one more individual conference championship, six new medalists and 20 total top-10 finishes during the final day of competition.
Grace Kling took home the top spot in the women's 200-breaststroke with a 2:18.87. It was an absolute obliteration of the competition as Kling won by two full seconds in the 200-yard event.
Nathan Schwantes and Jacob Haaksma each finished just off the pace in their events, grabbing individual runner-up finishes in the 200-butterfly and 200-breastroke, respectively.
The other podium finishes cam courtesy Gabe Weber in the 1,650-free (16:13.96), Jackson Black in the 200-backstroke (1:50.93) and Kolya Vos in the women's 100-freestyle (:51.62). Each of those swimmers went third and it was a new career-best in the 200-back for Black.
The men's team completed a perfect meet in terms of relay podium finishes with a third-place mark in the 400-freestyle relay. Tanner Smith, Jack Michelsen, Haaksma and Patrick Waggoner went 3:14.13.
Grace Kling (83) and
Liza Parahnevich (81) were the Biola women's top finishers at this meet, placing sixth and seventh amongst the 151 women to earn a point. On the men's side, Haaksma led the way with 52 points and
Gabe Weber brought in 48. They were fifth and seventh, respectively.
The season comes to a close for the team who will now make the trip back home to La Mirada after representing so well out in Utah.