The Minnesota Golden Gophers broke 13 pool records, including 6 from senior Lauren Votava, to sweep a two-day triangular with Denver and Brigham Young in Denver.
Women’s Meet
Votava swam 6 events for the Golden Gophers, breaking a pool record in each one. Individually, she won the 200 free (1:49.01) and 100 free (49.86), holding off Denver’s Johanna Roas in both races. Votava also helped Minnesota sweep the relay races, anchoring the 200 medley and 200 free relays and leading off the 400 and 800 free teams. Minnesota, the four-time defending Big Ten champs, broke pool records in all four of those relays.
Denver countered with tough sophomore Maddie Myers, who won the longer freestyle races as part of a three-win day. Her 10:12.84 beat Minnesota’s Sam Harding, an Olympic contender for Canada’s open water events, by about five seconds. Myers also won the 500 free in 5:01.99 and the 400 IM in a 4:26.20 to 4:26.82 win over freshman teammate Bailey Andison.
Each team had two more double individual winners. For Minnesota, freshman Zoe Avestruz won the 100 back (55.63) and 50 free (23.32) in a tight double on day 1, and sophomore Danielle Nack swept the butterfly events in 2:02.15 (for the 200) and 55.80 (in the 100).
Denver answered back with a breaststroke sweep courtesy of Amanda Sanders. The junior was 1:03.38 and 2:16.68, and freshman Morgan McCormick added wins in the 200 IM (2:05.59) and 200 back (2:00.68).
Minnesota’s relay dominance was too much to match, though, and that combined with two pool-record wins from defending NCAA champ Yu Zhou on the diving boards led to a dominating Minnesota showing in the final scores.
Scores:
- Minnesota 201, Denver 151
- Minnesota 282, BYU 70
- Denver 255-97
Men’s Meet
The Minnesota men used versatile sprinter Daryl Turner in a wide range of races, getting three individual wins to take the meet. Turner, a junior who came to Minnesota from a high school career in Colorado, was on fire in his home state, taking the 100 back, 100 free and 100 fly. The backstroke came on day 1, with Turner going 47.67 to blow out the field and knock down the pool record.
On day 2, Turner topped 50 free champ Peyton Sorenson of Brigham Young to win the 100 free, 44.37 to 45.02. Later in the day, Turner was back to go 48.40 in winning the 100 fly.
Turner was also a part of two pool record-setting relays, with Minnesota winning the 200 medley and 400 free relays.
As they did on the women’s side, Denver dominated the distance events. Dylan Bunch was the top contender there, sweeping the 1000 free (9:30.03) and 500 free (4:36.98) for the home team. Bunch also led Denver to a big win in the 800 free relay.
Denver was tough through the 200-yard events, too, getting wins from Anton Loncar (1:46.78 in the 200 back) and Kyle Robrock (1:52.40 in the 200 IM).
Brigham Young was much more competitive on the men’s side, turning the meet into much more of a three-team contest at the top of events. Senior Jake Taylor was the biggest BYU scorer, winning one event and narrowly missing another.
Taylor was 1:39.39 to top the 200 free, beating Minnesota’s Paul Fair and Denver’s Bunch. Taylor was second to Loncar in the 200 back by just .12 seconds, and helped BYU win the 200 free relay with a 20.72 leadoff leg. Maybe most impressive was his 43.80 split anchoring the 400 free relay and nearly tracking down Minnsota for the win.
Other BYU wins came from Rainer Ng in the 200 fly (1:51.28) and Stephen Richards in the 400 IM (4:01.67).
Minnesota and Denver traded blows in the breaststrokes. Tim Cottam went 55.87 to touch out Minnesota’s Conner McHugh by just .02 in the 100 breast, but McHugh came back to win the 200 breast in a pool record 2:00.35.
The final pool record came in diving, where Minnesota once again cruised. Matt Barnard broke the pool record on 1-meter and just missed the 3-meter win by .15 points. 3-meter went to BYU’s Kevin Dreesen.
Scores:
- Minnesota 199.5, Denver 152.5
- Minnesota 221.5, BYU 130.5
- Denver 185, BYU 167