HOUSTON, Texas (Feb. 27, 2020) – Due to a water main break in the city of Houston, the University of Houston has closed which forced the WAC to cancel the Thursday evening session of 2020 Swimming and Diving Championships. Preliminaries were completed in the morning session and will be scored as timed finals. As of now, racing is scheduled to resume tomorrow with preliminaries for the 400 IM beginning 9:30 a.m. MT, followed by the 400 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke. The evening session with the finals of each event are set to start at 4:30 p.m. MT.
The 200 freestyle relays that were originally scheduled for Thursday night will now take place at the start of Friday's evening session.
In addition, the men's 1-meter finals, which were originally scheduled for Thursday night will now take place on Friday. As a result, the men's Platform dive, which was originally scheduled for Friday, will now take place on Saturday.
After the first day, Wyoming sits in fourth place with 87 points. CSU-Bakersfield leads the way in first with 109, Air Force occupies second with 101 followed by Cal Baptist in third with 93 points.
"There are options and the coaches are discussing what would be best for the athletes if and when we can get back in the pool," head coach
Dave Denniston said. "Everyone has the same consensus that this is really unfortunate for the student-athletes. The conference is being diligent about making the best decision for everyone involved. Our men are ready to race regardless of which scenario plays out."
On the boards, the Cowboys were solid in the 1-meter competition. Freshman
Payton Lee opened up the preliminaries with sixth place finish with a score of 262.30. Sophomore
Brendan Byrnes would also move on to the finals with a mark of 259.20 to place eighth. Junior
Elijah Chan was just outside of the top eight with a score of 253.75. In the consolation final, Chan was third and improved his score to 271.70.
The 500 freestyle would prove to be a strong event on the day. In the prelims, senior
Jacob Harlan would finish fifth with a season-best time of 4:23.74, which is almost 15 seconds better than his previous best. Sophomore
Ryan Netzel followed with a mark of 4:24.68. Senior
Seth Borgert posted a season-best time of 4:29.13 to place 12
th, while freshman
Robert Mitchell turned in a career-best time of 4:30.87.
In the 200 IM, junior
Brayden Love posted a career-best time 1:46.88, which is third all-time in school history, to place fourth. Senior
Tyler Klatt finished sixth with a career-best time of 1:48.47, while freshman
Andrew Rodriguez followed with a career-best time of 1:48.61.
A school record would almost fall in the prelims of the 50 freestyle. Sophomore
Grant Sloan posted a career-best time of 19.89 to place third and meet the NCAA B standard. The mark is second all-time in school history and was just four one hundredths off the school record of 19.85. Senior
PJ Musser turned in a career-best time of 20.05 to finish seventh, while sophomore
James Bouda tied his season-best with a time of 20.66.
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