With four men’s teams and three women’s programs competing at the UNLV tri/quad in Las Vegas, visiting Denver University came down with a tight 153.5-143.5 win over UNLV to win all three men’s duals. Air Force picked up the wins for the women, topping their closest competitor, also UNLV, 175-124.
Also competing were the Air Force men and both men and women from Cal State – Bakersfield.
The Denver men were led by Dylan Bunch, who rampaged through the distance freestyle events for three wins. He went 15:43.51 for a touchout of CSUB’s Mitchell Huxhold in the 1650, then came back in the very next event to go 1:39.01 for a blowout 200 free win. Finally, Bunch went 4:30.38 in the 500 free to once again top Huxhold, who was the biggest point-scorer for Bakersfield.
Meanwhile in the shorter races, UNLV was the team to beat, with rising sprint threat Dillon Virva going 20.45 to win the 50 free, Henrique Machado winnin gthe 100 back in 49.50 and David Szele taking the 100 breast in 55.88.
UNLV swept all four relays between the men and women, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Denver Pioneer men or the Air Force women.
Those Falcons got some big wins from freshman Genevieve Miller, who won the 500 free in 4:59.68 and also took the 1650 witha 17:10.55. Both wins were by at least 5 seconds. Other very convincing winners were Sam Laughlin in the backstrokes (56.94 and 2:03.29) and Kim Davis, who won the 400 IM in 4:27.43 and led a 1-2 Falcon punch in the 200 breast with freshman Kira Schlosberg.
Davis got touched out of what would have been her third win in the 200 free, when Bakersfield’s fab freshman Paola Hernandez went 1:52.17 to Davis’s 1:52.40. UNLV’s Jessica Heim was just behind in 1:52.40. Hernandez went on to win the 100 free with her second season-best of the meet.
Denver always has a surprisenly good, well balanced men’s team that seems to sneak up and beat higher ranked teams. Love the colorful language of their press release with terms like “rampaged” and “blow out victory”.
Not so surprised they stung UNLV this time, and in past years they have owned Utah as well. Utah arrives at Denver next week and should be looking for revenge with their much improved teams.