PROVO, Utah — BYU men’s swimmers won three individual events, a third relay and broke two more school records as competition concluded at the Mizzou Invitational in Columbia, Missouri on Friday.
"These kids love what they do and they raced to the very end," said BYU head swimming coach Shari Skabelund. "They all fed off of each other with unbelievable energy and effort leading to so many good swims."
For the second time in three days, Brad Prolo slashed his own school record time in the 200 fly. The senior from San Clemente, California clocked a personal-best 1:41.80 to win the event over host Missouri’s Jan Zubik. With his performance on Friday night, Prolo now ranks fourth nationally in the 200 fly having surpassed Alex Colson of No. 1 Arizona State.
Jordan Tiffany won his third individual event of the meet while clocking the program’s second-best time in the 100 free. Tiffany met the wall at 42.60, 0.4 seconds ahead of runner-up Grant Bochenski of Missouri. Tiffany surpassed Stanford’s Andres Dupont for sixth nationally in the 100 free and joins Payton Sorenson as the program’s second ever to break 43 seconds.
Freshman Joshua Reed joined Tiffany in the top-5 with a fourth-place finish in a personal-best 43.52. Reed debuts on the 100 free top-10 board with a tie for seventh all-time with Brigham Harrison (2023).
Darwin Anderson and Abraham Barragan finished first and second, respectively, in the 1650 free. Anderson finished over 11 seconds ahead of third-place Aaron Wilmes of TCU while Barragan did the same over fourth place. Anderson (fourth) and Barragan (fifth) now join the top-5 nationally in the event after jumping Army’s Clayton Bernauer on Friday.
The Cougars finished the night off strong with their third relay win of the meet. Luigi Riva, Abraham Zimmerman, Reed and Tiffany teamed up to clock 2:52.27 in the 400 free relay. The foursome trimmed five seconds off their entry time and overtook Missouri by 0.97 seconds. BYU’s 400 free relay squad now ranks fifth nationally, ahead of squads from Indiana, Pitt and Florida State.
While coming up short of winning the 200 breast final, Emerson Edwards recorded a school record-breaking 1:55.85 in the preliminary. Edwards shaved nearly a third of a second off his previous best on the way to surpassing Olympian Josue Dominguez’s record of 1:55.97 set in 2019.
BYU swimmers will participate in long course time trials at the Mizzou Aquatics Center on Saturday. Participating athletes will vie for U.S. Olympic Trial time standards in hopes of qualifying for the June 2024 event at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Men’s diving continued competition at the SMU Invite in Dallas, Texas on Friday. Chase Hindmarsh and Mickey Strauss each posted top-10 finishes for the Cougars in the 1-meter finals with scores of 299.35 and 266.60, respectively. The divers will conclude competition in Dallas on Saturday.