For the most part, the early stages of the Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference Championships have been a platform for the Mustangs to drop time.
Raymie Matiashowski produced a season-best mark in the 500-yard freestyle Thursday at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California. Later in the day, the Mustang men's and women's 200-free relays, both of which had already qualified for NAIA nationals, each went faster than they had at any point this season.
But for
Lezly Plahn, conference finals is where she punched her ticket to NAIA nationals.
Plahn hit the NAIA "A" standard in the 50 freestyle Thursday, finishing in a time of 25.20 seconds. She is the first member of TMU's women's team to qualify as an individual this season for a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, early next month.
"I'm super stoked," Plahn said. "I'm incredibly thankful to have the opportunity to represent Master's and be part of such a well-coached team and a team that builds each other up and pushes each other to do our best."
Plahn went 25.29 in prelims Thursday, but she says did a better job maintaining a consistently fast pace in the night's finals, where she dropped .09 seconds.
"I also had a better reaction time with my starts and stayed strong through my final turn," she said.
Elsewhere, TMU's
Xavier Gutierrez hit the NAIA's "B" cut in the 50 free for the second time this season Thursday. The freshman swam the event's final in 22.57 to finish second in his heat, and because he also helped TMU qualify in at least one relay, he'll have the option of swimming the 50 free at nationals.
As far as TMU's 200-free relay dropping time, Gutierrez said the key was the group's new pair of speed suits. A team consisting of Gutierrez, Mazen Hussein, Matiashowski and
Brandon Watson posted a time of 1 minute, 35.07 seconds.
"We all had a speed suit on, so we dropped time," he said.
TMU's women's 200-free relay (Plahn,
Madison Eaton,
Simone Williams,
Faith Cancik) finished in 1:45.57, a season-low.
Matiashowski swam a season-best 5:01.87 in the finals of the 500 freestyle, missing the NAIA cut by just .9 seconds.
Dropping time wasn't an activity limited to Thursday, however.
On Wednesday, both the men's and women's 200-medley relays finished in season-best times.
Eaton,
Yasmine Corel, Williams and Plahn went 2:01.01 for the women. And Watson, Matiashowski, Gutierrez and Hussein went 1:47.38 for the men.
The Mustangs will be back in action Friday and Saturday at East Los Angeles College.
The conference features household names such as Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount. As of Thursday, Master's was in seventh place for men and 13th place for women.
