FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — BYU men’s swim and dive rewrote a relay school record and posted three fourth-place finishes on Tuesday as it opened competition at the 2025 Big 12 Championships at Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center.
“I’m thrilled with how our teams performed on the first night of the meet to set the stage for the week,” said BYU head swim and dive coach Tamber McAllister. “The men raced great and broke the longest standing relay record we had.”
Tanner Nelson, Nathaniel Eliason, Joshua Reed and Payton Plumb assembled to set a school-record 6:19.94 in the 800 free relay, an improvement of 7.36 seconds on the squad’s season-best time. Nelson jumped out with a personal-best 1:35.58 in the 200 free leadoff while Eliason notched the squad’s fastest leg at 1:34.25. Reed and Plumb then finished with times of 1:35.34 and 1:34.77, respectively, as the squad finished fourth.
The foursome’s new school record overtakes the previous time by 6.34 seconds, one that has stood since set by Jake Taylor, Connor Stirling, Preston Jenkins and Luis Ventura in 2016.
Max Kleinman, Peter Etzold, Luigi Riva and Eliason combined for another fourth-place finish, this time in the 200 medley relay. The Cougars foursome improved on their season-best time by nearly two seconds with a 1:24.57 powered by Kleinman’s personal-best 21.91 in the 50 back. The freshman from Gilbert, Arizona now ranks No. 3 all-time at BYU in the short distance backstroke.
Etzold followed Kleinman with a 23.63 50 breast while Riva and Eliason both clocked sub-20 seconds with times of 19.95 and 19.08 in the 50 fly and 50 free, respectively.
Another individual top 10 time came during the morning’s time trials with Grant Chapa clocking a personal-best 22.33 in the 50 back, good for No. 9 on the BYU record boards.
BYU men’s diving opened its conference championship week with Chase Hindmarsh, Ezra Purcell and Marti Llop combining to score 331.75 and take fourth in the team diving event. Hindmarsh helped the Cougars to the 331.75 with two season-high platform dives.
"While both our dive teams were just shy of some hardware, they did excellent under high energy conditions and top level competition," said BYU head dive coach Tyce Routson.
After day one, BYU holds a narrow 156-154 fourth-place lead over Utah. The Cougars resume competition Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST as preliminary races get underway with the 500 free.