Pasadena area swimmers shine in Day 2 of SCAC Championships

Photo by Darla S Tamulitis, La Vita Loca Photography
Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved
(archived photo)

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved

GARLAND, TEXAS (February 13, 2025) Swimmers from Pasadena, Texas continued to shine at the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Swimming and Diving Championships at Garland ISD Natatorium in Garland, Texas. Day two saw University of St. Thomas sophomore Emely Lopez (Pasadena High School) and McMurry University junior Harrison Brown (First Baptist Christian Academy) compete in the 50-yard freestyle and also swim the anchor leg (freestyle) for their respective universities in the 400-yard medley relay.

Brown anchored the War Eagle relay to a fourth-place finish, posting the time of :47.74 to finish the relay with the time of 3.35.17, dropping 4.9 seconds from their season best. Lopez (shown above) covered her 100-yard anchor leg with the time of 1:01.73 to assist her Celts' teammates record the time of 4:29.50; dropping 4.54 seconds off their season best to take eighth place.

Both also competed in the women's and men's 50-yard freestyle, with Lopez placing 29th and Brown finishing in 18th place.

The championships will continue on Friday with the 100-yard butterfly, 400-yard individual medley, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, and 200-yard freestyle relay.

SCAC Swimming-Diving Championships kick off for Pasadena area athletes

Photo by Darla S Tamulitis, La VIta Loca Photography, Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved

GARLAND, TEXAS (February 12, 2025) The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Swimming and Diving Championships kicked off on Wednesday, February 12, with six swimmers and divers, who competed in their prep careers for various Pasadena, Texas area high schools. Two of the six swimmers, Emely Lopez (Pasadena HS, Pasadena, TX) who attends for St. Thomas University and Harrison Brown (First Baptist Christian Academy) who is at McMurry University, saw action on the opening night of the meet.

The championships is being contested at the Garland ISD Natatorium and saw four event finals on Wednesday.  Lopez, who is in her second year of competing for the Celts, anchored their 200-yard medley relay to the eighth-place finish in the finals with the time of 1:59.69, improving from their seed time of 2:01.46.

Brown, who is in his junior year at McMurry, swam on two relays who scored in the finals. In the 200-yard medley relay, he swam the freestyle leg for the War Hawks posting a 1:37.86, good enough for fifth place. In the final event of the evening, Brown, along with Wes Scalf, Montgomery Cortez, and Victor Zambrano placed fourth in the 800-yard freestyle relay with the time of 7:13.7, which set a new school record in the event.

The other four Pasadena, Texas area swimmers; Jael Medrano (Pasadena HS), Alan Ramirez, (Pasadena HS), Alexa Montanez (Pasadena HS), and Navya Karunarathne (South Houston HS), all of whom compete for University of the Ozarks (Arkansas) did not see action. They will kick off their competition later in the week.

Local swimmers contribute in McMurry War Hawks win over Austin College, Centenary College

Christopher Brown
Photo courtesy of
McMurry Athletics
Media Relations Department

By Robert H Kelly

Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved

SHERMAN, TEXAS (January 23, 2021) The McMurry University swimming and diving team travelled to Sherman, Texas on Saturday to take on the Austin College Kangaroos and Centenary College in a double-dual meet at Hannah Natatorium.

The McMurry men claimed two more wins to remain unbeaten this season, taking down Austin College 178-40 and snagging a close matchup with Centenary 117-111. The McMurry women competed at a high level but came up short in both battles, falling 149-74 to Austin College and 139.50-76.50 against Centenary.

Christopher Brown (First Baptist Christian Academy, Pasadena, Texas) competed in the events; 200-yard freestyle , 500-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke. In the 200-yard freestyle (2:19.71) and thE 500-yard freestyle (6:34.44)  , he posted two third-place finishes, while tallying seventh-place in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:25.78).

Melanie Jimenez
Photo courtesy of 
McMurry Athletics
Media Relations Department

Melanie Jimenez (Pasadena Memorial High School, Pasadena, Texas) swam in three individual and two relay events. She place third in both the 50-yard freestyle (:28.54) and 100-yard freestyle (1:02.25) and fourth place in the 200-yard freestyle (2:18.45). In the relays, she swam the backstroke leg of the 200-yard medley relay (third place, 2:10.02) and the leadoff leg of the exhibition 200-yard freestyle relay (1:58.99).

Prior to college, both Brown and Jimenez competed for the South Belt Area "All Stars" swimming team in club swimming.

McMurry head coach, Casey Pacheco stated in a prepared press release, after the meet:

"Today's meet was a lot of fun especially going up against tough competition. We knew this was going to be a meet of picking up extra spots and swimming some events out of our comfort zones. The team responded well and competed from the first event to the last."

Former Pasadena-area high school swimmers competed in first college meet of 2021

By Robert H Kelly

Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO (January 15, 2021) Three swimmers who competed for Pasadena, Texas area schools during their prep careers kicked of the 2020-2021 college season with a series of dual meets at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Melanie Jimenez (Pasadena Memorial HS, Class of 2020) and Christopher Brown (First Baptist Christian Academy, Class of 2020) are competing for McMurry University (Abilene, Texas) , with Michael Vargas (Sam Rayburn HS, Class of 2019) is competing for the University of the Ozarks Eagles, located in Clarksville, Arkansas.

In the first day of the two-day competition, the McMurry War Hawks were competing against Austin College while the Ozark Eagles faced Colorado College. In the McMurry vs. Austin meet, the War Hawks downed the Kangaroos in the men's division 138-38. In the women's division, Austin topped McMurry, 103-72. In the Ozark vs. Colorado matchup, the Tigers down the Eagles, 178-44

Photo courtesy of
McMurry Athletics
Media Relations Department

Jimenez (shown left) competed in two individual and two relay events. Her first individual event of the meet was the 50-yard freestyle, where she placed second with the time :28.33. In the 100-yard freestyle, she placed third (1:02.68) in a race that saw a mere 63-hundreths of a second between the top-three places. The War Hawks 200-yard medley relay saw the former Maverick regional qualifier swim the freestyle leg, anchoring the relay to a second place finish. The 400-yard freestyle relay was contested as an "exhibition" swim, due to entry limitation. Jimenez swam the leadoff leg with the time of 1:04.74  in route to a final time of 4:27.81.

Photo courtesy of
McMurry Athletics
Media Relations Department

On the men's side of the War Hawks-Kangaroo contest, Brown (shown right) competed the 1000-yard freestyle, where he posted the time of 14:13.48, good enough for a third-place finish. In the 100-yard backstroke, he took fourth place, with the time of 1:19.48. The final event for the freshman was the 100-yard backstroke, where clocked the time of 1:16.08 in an exhibition swim. 

Photo courtesy of
University of the Ozarks
Sports Information
Department

Vargas (shown left) competed in two swimming and one diving event in the Eagles' contest against the Colorado, The sophomore  placed fourth in the 200-yard freestyle (2:29.84) and fifth in the 100-yard backstroke (1:11.51). In one-meter diving, he took third place (103.95 points).

All three swimmers will meet on Saturday, when McMurry and Ozarks face off in the final competition of the weekend.  

Houston takes American Athletic Conference swimming and diving title

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2017 TexSport Publications

(All photos by Robert H Kelly, Copyright 2017, All Rights Reserved)

HOUSTON, TEXAS (February 18, 2017) The Houston Cougars women’s swimming and diving team used six medal-platform finishes to power them to the 2017 American Athletic Conference Championships title at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center in Houston on Saturday, February 18, 2017. The conference championship was the first for the Cougars in program history. Head coach Ryan Wochomurka and diving coach Bob Gunter were selected as the Coach of the Year, with junior Micaela Bouter being awarded the Diver of the Meet honors. Houston scored 772 points in route to their title, followed by 2016 champion SMU with 676 points. Cincinnati (625), East Carolina (473), Connecticut (460) and Tulane (395) rounded out the team placing.

Wochomurka talked about the Cougars’ performance after the meet.

“Look around at everything we have at this university. We have one of the best facilities in the country. We’ve got the best administration in the country. We’ve got an athletic director who wants to jump in the pool with us at the end of the meet. Why can’t we play and be extremely relevant nationally? We’re just getting started. I’m excited for these kids and most importantly I’m excited for these seniors because they had a couple of years where they struggled, but they battled and they led us to this championship. We are not here today without our seniors.”

The Cougars who scored points and their placings are as follows:

1,650-Yard Freestyle

6. Hannah Herbst – 16:41.39

7. Connor Glenn – 16:53.00

200-Yard Backstroke

2. Eleanna Koutsouveli – 1:55.97

6. Laura Laderoute – 1:59.05

---

9. Jasmine Williams – 1:58.65

12. Jennifer Penneck – 2:01.22

100-Yard Freestyle

3. Ksenia Yuskova – 49.93

6. Zarena Brown – 50.49

8. Caitlin Horner – 50.88

200-Yard Breaststroke

2. Victoria Roubique – 2:12.50

4. Peyton Kondis – 2:13.68

5. Cameron Balkom – 2:14.60

200-Yard Butterfly

5. Sharo Rodriquez Rivera – 2:00.51

Platform Dive

2. Micaela Bouter – 213.00

3 Katelyn Abernathy – 202.80

7. Laurel Burrell – 158.00

400-Yard Freestyle Relay

3. Houston – 3:21.71

Zarena Brown, Laura Laderoute, Ksenia Yuskova, Caitlin Horner

Next up for Houston will be the NCAA Zone Diving Meet on March 6-8 in Columbia, Missouri, which will determine the qualifiers for the NCAA Championships on March 15-17 in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Arizona State men's swimming win meet in final race; down BYU 151 - 148

1^st Place and 2^nd go to ASU’s Men’s 400 Free Relay.

Photo by Mike Stockman

By Mike Stockman

Staff Correspondent
Copyright 2015 Phoenix Area Sports
(used with permission by TexSport Publications)

TEMPE, ARIZONA  (January 10, 2015) Arizona State University’s men swimming and diving team squeeze out a victory by taking first and second place in the final event of the meet, the 400 free relay, against the Brigham Young University Cougars for a final score 151 -148 at Mona Plummer Aquatic Complex on Saturday, January 10, 2015.

Going into the final event, the 400 Free Relay, ASU’s men were down by 10 points. ASU had two relay teams and BYU fielded three. It would take a stellar performance by both relay teams, requiring them to place first and second to take the meet.

ASU’s “A” team, consisting of Patrick Park, Tadas Duskinas, Sean Kao, and Joe Worrick took the lead and never looked back.

ASU’s “B” team, consisting of Thomaz Martins, Cole Miller, Juhan Hong, and Narkley Perry, was on “A” teams’ heels but were never able to gain ground, finishing a comfortable lead in front of BYU’s “B” team, consisting of Seth Russell, Levi Jensen, Matt Abernethy, and Michael King.

ASU men's diving contributed to the team’s comeback victory against BYU when David Hoffer placed third in one meter diving and first place in the three meter diving. Hunter Atha placed third in the three meter event bringing the total diving contribution to 15 points.

ASU’s women defeated BYU by a score of 182 – 111. Key performances by the women included first place finishes in 200 yard medley relay, 1000 yard free, 200 yard free, 100 yard back, 100 yard breast, 200 yard fly, 50 yard free, 100 yard free, 200 yard back, 200 yard breast, 500 yard free, 100 yard fly, 1 meter diving, 200 yard Individual Medley, and the 400 yard free relay.

The Cougars will be hosting Denver on Saturday January 24 at the Richards Building Pool in Provo.

ASU’s next home appearance is against PAC-12 rivals Cal and Stanford on Jan 23 and 24 at 12 P.M. AZ Time.