Cal Baptist Men Repeat, Rice Women Win MPSF Open Water Championships
The Cal Baptist men’s team won its second straight MPSF Open Water Championship on Saturday, while the Rice women claimed their first title.
CBU scored 135 points to lift the title again at Marine Stadium in Long Beach, California at the conference’s third staging of the event. The Lancers’ score included a win in the men’s 2,000-meter relay. Second in the team standings with 110 points was Grand Canyon, while Whittier College’s 101 points edged BYU for third place.
Rice scored 148 points, tops among 17 scoring programs on the women’s side. Washington State was second with 118, followed by 89 points for Cal Baptist in finishing third.
The gold medal in the men’s race went to Whittier’s Thomas Langlois, who covered the 5,000 meters in 59 minutes, 6.41 seconds. It took breaking an hour to get on the podium, with Cal Baptist’s Mark Kovacsics second in 59:07.15, then Batu Servi of Grand Canyon.
CBU placed four in the top eight, though only three score. Holden Short was fifth, Cody Meyer seventh and Fernando Manceras eighth. UC Santa Barbara got a fourth-place finish from Connor Martilla. Wojciech Chalat of Quincy University was sixth.
The Lancers’ relay team of Kovacsics, Short, Andrew Teh and Eli Rollen went 24:30.02, besting BYU’s quartet of Darwin Anderson, Easton Mousser, Tanner Nelson and Dan Weber by five minutes. Anderson, who finished ninth in the 5,000, was BYU’s top individual finisher. Grand Canyon was third in the relay.
On the women’s side, Rice ran away with the title via a 1-2 finish. Ella Dyson, who has twice won the CSCAA open water individual title, added another trophy to the cabinet by going 1:01:21.0 to win. She finished 59 seconds ahead of teammate Ava Portello.
Rice’s third scorer was Ava Hamblett in fifth place in 1:03:34.0, with teammate Renee Tan seventh for good measure.
Third place went to Kyra Rabess of Northern Colorado in 1:03:13.0. Washington State’s Sophie Hay was fourth, with teammate Tatum Janning sixth. New Mexico State’s Estel Galo Nogueira secured eighth place.
Rice rolled in the 2,000-meter relay, winning by 42 seconds. Dyson, Portello, Hamblett and Mollie McAlorum comprised that squad. Washington State was second with Hay, Janning, Vivien Nett and Avery Bulkley. BYU finished third.
