The UNLV Rebels kicked off their first swimming and diving home meet of the season on Saturday with the women against Air Force and the men facing both Harvard and Air Force. The Harvard men improved to 8-0 on the season Saturday, sweeping UNLV and Air Force in Las Vegas. The Crimson topped the Rebels, 188-105, and handed Air Force its first loss of the year with a 163-132 triumph. UNLV's women topped AFA 196-101.
Freshman Logan Houck procured the first individual victory of the meet for the Crimson, swimming to the top finish in the 1,000 freestyle with a time of 9:16.42. Teammates Kent Haeffner and Gavin Springer were right behind him to round out the top-three. Harvard also dominated the 500 free later in the meet, led once again by Houck. Brennan Novak, Haeffner and Springer followed suit for the Crimson.
The women ended the meet having won 11 total events. The day started off well with the team of Elena Gavrilova, Lina Rathsack, Jessica Wong, and Julia Fehervari winning the 200 medley relay in 1:43.45. The dominance continued with Michelle Troup then winning the 200 freestyle (1:52.06) and later in the day the 100 freestyle (51.33). Wong also won two individual events, the 100 (57.39) and 200 backstroke (2:02.87). Rathsack continued the winning trend with a first in the 100 breastroke (1:03.68) and then also the 200 breastroke (2:18.87), while Julia Fehervari won the 50 freestyle in 23.82.
Goezde Tekin also put her name on the charts this weekend with a win in the 200 butterfly (2:06.82) and 200 IM (2:07.42). To finish off the day, the Rebels brought home one final win in the 400 freestlyle, with Fehervari, Gavrilova, Rathsack, and Troup all swimming once more and posting a time of 3:26.10. Interim Head Coach Bobby Folan stated "It's hard to single anyone out because they were all great today They really came together as a team and are well positioned a month out from our conference meet.
"Our men had some solid performances and are starting to see the results of their hard work over the last few months," said Folan. :We still have some work to do before the WAC championships as a team however." Avi Cohen was the first men's winner for the day in the 200 butterfly (1:49.41). Dillion Virva followed this with a win in the 50 freestyle in 20.04. Hannon Daigler placed first in the 200 IM (1:53.28) for the Rebels, who also took the last event of the meet, the 400 free relay, in a time of 3:01.65 thanks to the quartet of Kasey Foley, Forrest Beesley, Caio Dini and Virva.
The Rebels close out the regular season next weekend, starting with a home meet against Pacific on Friday, Jan. 29 at 1 pm in Buchanan Natatorium.
