Foster Wins Second Event, Finishes as Top Scorer Overall
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Jordan Foster picked up another event win, her second of the UNLV Invitational, as she won the 100-yard individual medley and then grabbed a third-place finish in the B-Final of 200-yard Breaststroke to clinch the individual points title at the UNLV Invitational.
New Mexico finished sixth out of eight teams but saved its best day for last with several A-Final finishes and solid performances as the team continues to show rapid improvement. Overall UNM scored 346 points, just nine points behind Pacific for fifth and 51 behind Cal Baptist for fourth.
Overall, joining Foster in A-Finals on the night were Maddie Deucher, Katy McCarter and Maya Clise, who earned what would have been an A-Final finish in the 1,650-yard free.
Going back to the late results from Monday night, Alice English earned a fourth-place finish in the 3-meter dive, scoring a 242.05 as she qualified for both diving A-Finals. That mark was an NCAA Zones qualifying score as well. Kristen Hepfer, who won the B-Final on Sunday with a score that also made Zones and would have placed her sixth in the A-Final, finished third in the B-final with Abigail Bouravnev coming in seventh.
On Tuesday, it was about Foster, who opened her night with her second win, this time in the 100-yard individual medley. Foster was second in the prelims at 57.65 and then just did nip Benedict Nagy of Colorado Mesa at the touch, coming in at 56.86, just 0.09 seconds faster. That scored her 20 points to Nagy’s 17, and it was those 0.09 seconds that helped Foster clinch the individual points title with 75, one more than Nagy.
For Foster, her 75 points came with her two event wins, the 100-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle, scoring 20 team points in each race. She scored 16 points with her third-place overall finish in the 100-yard butterfly, 13 with a sixth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, and then six with an 11th-place overall finish in the 200-yard breaststroke.
After all her events, she needed Nagy not to win the 200-yard butterfly to clinch the overall points title, and that’s what happened as Nagy finished second in that event, leaving her one point behind Foster.
Foster also swam in four scoring relays, which didn’t count toward her individual point total.
The evening finals session opened with Maya Clise finishing eighth in the 1,650-yard free, a race that is 33 legs of the 50-yard pool. Clise finished the nearly mile-long swim at 17:44.04. Also scoring for UNM in the race was Marin Wilson, who finished 11th in a time of 18:49.64.
Foster’s win in the 100-yard individual medley marked her first go in the event this season. Layni Andrle, who also competed in the race for the first time this season, finished fourth in the B-Final at 1:01.00 flat.
Backstroke specialist Maddie Deucher earned an A-Final appearance after a 2:04.91 qualifying score, but she couldn’t replicate that mark, finishing eighth but scoring 11 points.
Alex McGill and Kaylah Yazzie finished first and fourth in the C-Final of the event, with McGill’s 2:04.55 overall finishing 17th, but that time would have been sixth in the A-Final.
In the 100-yard free, Katy McCarter swam a 51.32 for her best time of the season in finishing fifth in the A-Final.
The Lobos posted three to the B-Final of the 200-yard breaststroke with Clise earning the win and nine points with a time of 2:18.67, shaving nearly seven seconds off her best time of the year. Foster was third with a time of 2:19.33 and Ola Tomaszek was eighth with 2:24.19. Kiana Raagas won the C-Final in the 200 breast with Amaya Oliphant third.
Andrle scored again in the 200-yard butterfly, coming in sixth in the B-Final. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, Foster, McCarter, Sophia Corder, and Linda Franco finished ninth for UNM’s final 18 points of the competition while Clise, Tahlia Micallef, Brynn Quintana, and Paige Lyons finished 13th for 10 points.