LONG BEACH, Calif. – Fresno Pacific continues to race with tough competitors, taking on team like UC Santa Barbara, UNLV and Cal Poly at the Finis Cup this last weekend on Dec. 11 through Dec. 14. The Sunbirds finished the weekend with six top-eight individual finishers and three relays finishing in the top-three.
Cheyenne Coffman led the Sunbirds with two championship finals, finishing sixth in the 50 freestyle (24.04) and third in the 100 backstroke (57.41). Coffman had her best swims in the relays where she led off faster splits than her individual finals (23.91, 56.64).
Erik Thiessen also finished third in the 100 backstroke (50.84) for the Sunbirds, while Bart Kelly finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke (58.43);
Brooke Turner finished eighth in the 500 freestyle (5:19.70) and
Seamus Alger finished eighth in the 400 individual medley (4:06.61).
Three relays finished third for the Sunbirds; both men’s and women’s 400 medley relays (3:29.21, 3:58.39) finished third along with the men’s 200 medley relay (1:32.80). All the Sunbirds’ other relays also finished in the top-eight.
The Sunbirds also had consolation finalists with
Carl Weigley finishing 16th place in the 50 freestyle (21.45) and 11th in the 100 butterfly (51.34), where teammate Thiessen finished 16th (53.39) in the same final.
Seamus Alger finished 9th in the 200 individual medley (1:54.47) winning the consolation finals, and
Stacy Carter and #Joclyn# Ford rounded off the Sunbirds' top-16 finishes with a 11th in the 400 individual medley (4:39.26) and 14th in the 100 breaststroke (1:08.11), respectively.
Coach Peter Richardson commented after the meet, “It was not our best meet, but we swam pretty well. We saw a few things to work on before Nationals, but that is the idea of the mid-season meet.”
“I was happy with how our team competed against some strong teams, and how we had a lot of spirit throughout the meet,” concluded Coach Richardson.
The Sunbirds will return to the pool after the holidays to take on Concordia and California Baptist on Saturday, January 16. All three teams were top-five NAIA teams last year, and the men’s meet should be exciting with the three top teams from Nationals last year.