Horned Frog Sports Roundup: March 1, 2023

Swimming and Diving:

TCU Swimming and Diving competed at the Big 12 Championships last week in a four-day meet on February 22nd-25th. The men’s and women’s teams both had great showings as the men finished second and the women came in third overall.

The Frogs started off strong in diving and relay as David Ekdahl secured his second straight win in 1-meter boards diving at the Big 12 Championships with a school record score of 419.80. Max Burman joined Ekdahl on the podium in the 1-meter boards with a third-place finish thanks to an excellent score of 389.55. Anna Kwong took home a silver medal on the women’s side of the 1-meter boards with a school record score of 348.90. Three relay teams had record-setting performances with both the men’s and women’s 200 medley relay teams breaking school records at the Big 12 Championships along with the men’s 800-meter freestyle relay.

The strong showings from relay continued into the second day as both the men’s and women’s 400 medley relay teams finished second overall. The third day of competition saw 22 Frogs qualify for championship finals and a few Frogs earning NCAA B-cuts. Jadon Wuilliez was one of those Frogs to earn an NCAA B-cut as he finished second overall in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke with a school record time of 51.70. Milan Fabian earned a B-cut with a 4th overall finish in 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:35.24 which broke the program record.

Claire Chahbandour was yet another Frog to earn an NCAA B-cut with a 1:01.29 time in the 100-meter breaststroke, breaking her own program record. Edgar Cicanci took home a bronze medal and a B-cut with a 47.16 time in the 100-meter backstroke. Alec Hubbard took home a silver medal on platforms on the last day of competition for the Frogs with a program-best score of 391.05. Tristan McFarland finished on the podium for TCU with a 3rd-place finish in the men’s 1650-meter freestyle.

TCU closed out the week strong with a silver medal from the women’s 400-meter freestyle relay team. Both teams were exceptional at the Big 12 Championships as the women were within 9 points of second place and the men had a convincing lead of almost 300 points on the third place team. The Frogs will look to build on this strong performance when they head to the Short Course Championships in Austin on March 2nd-4th.

Track and Field:

TCU Track and Field traveled to Lubbock this past weekend for the Indoor Track and Field Big 12 Championships. Although the team results weren’t great, as both the men’s and women’s teams finished last, there were some standout individual performances from the Frogs.

Patrick Sylla and Jaren Holmes had great jumps in the men’s long jump as they placed 5th and 6th place with jumps of 7.38m and 7.36m respectively. Quinn Calhoun had a good showing in pole vault for TCU with an 8th place finish. Elise Dobson finished 8th in pentathlon with a score of 3,602 thanks to personal bests in four events. Iyana Gray qualified for the finals in the 60m and 200m dash, David Seete qualified for the 600-yard finals, Donnie James qualified for the 200-meter men’s final, and Jasmin Muhammad-Graham qualified for the 800-meter finals on the first day.

Seete followed up that qualifying run with a second-place finish in the finals with a personal best time of 1:08.83. Grace Inigbata also took home hardware for the Frogs as she secured a 3rd-place finish in the triple jump. Gray had solid performances in the 60m and 200m finishing 5th and 7th overall in those events respectively while James finished 6th overall in the men’s 200m. Muhammad-Graham had a solid run in the 800m finals with a 7th-place finish overall. The 4x400 relay teams for TCU both had good performances as the men’s team finished 6th overall and the women’s team came in 7th overall.

TCU will next be sending representatives to the Longhorn Invite on March 4th before the NCAA Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 10th-11th.

Women’s Tennis:

TCU Women’s Tennis faced their first road test of the season as they traveled to Orlando to face a very good, number 14-ranked UCF team. The Frogs dropped a tough one by a score of 4-0.

UCF took the doubles point thanks to victories from their top 2 pairings over the Horned Frog duos of Jade Otway/Mercedes Aristegui and Helena Narmount/Yu-Chin Tsai. The third doubles matchup was one game away from going the way of TCU as Tiphanie Lemaitre and Destinee Martins were winning 5-2 when the doubles point was clinched. The Frogs started off much stronger in singles as they won 3 of 6 first sets on courts 1, 2, and 4 from Lemaitre, Aristegui, and Martins.

Unfortunately for TCU, none of those matches were completed by the time UCF clinched on the other three courts and the match overall. The Frogs have a great chance to bounce back from back-to-back tough losses with a home match-up against Richmond next on March 6th in Fort Worth.

Beach Volleyball:

TCU Beach Volleyball is back after a historical run in the 2022 season to the elite eight and off to a very hot start once again. The Frogs went undefeated over the opening weekend, picking up victories over UAB, Houston Christian, Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Central Arkansas.

TCU swept all their opponents over the weekend as well, defeating all 4 opponents by a score of 5-0. UAB and Houston Christian were the opponents on the first day of the tournament for TCU. The Frogs did not drop a set against the Blazers from UAB and even won the exhibition match in straight sets. It was more of the same for the Frogs against Houston Christian where they won all but one set and secured another sweep in convincing fashion. Maria Gonzalez and Hailey Hamlet had the largest margin of victory for the Frogs with a 24-point gap over their Houston Christian counterparts across two sets.

The success continued for TCU on the second day of the tournament as they earned their 3rd and 4th sweeps of the season. Texas A&M Corpus Christi saw TCU win all but one set against the Islanders, moving the all-time series record between the two teams to 10-0 in favor of TCU. The match with Central Arkansas was yet another dominant TCU victory as the Frogs would not lose a set.

The Frogs will head to Tampa, Florida for the Tampa Tournament to face tougher competition as matchups with number 8 Georgia State and number 2 Florida State wait for the number 3 ranked Horned Frogs.

Equestrian:

TCU Equestrian had a chance to clinch their first regular season Big 12 championship in program history in a top 10 battle against number 7 ranked Oklahoma State in Stillwater but suffered a very close tough loss by a final score of 11-9.

OSU got off to a hot start with a 3-2 win in fences despite wins from Sydney Berube and Ashleigh Scully for TCU, both scoring 80 points on their rides. Horsemanship ended with the same score in favor of Oklahoma State. Jessica McAllister did pick up MOP honors in the event thanks to an excellent 80-point ride which secured a point for TCU. Reining was yet another 3-2 win for Oklahoma State with the TCU wins coming from Mattie Dukes and Lannie-Jo Lisac.

The Frogs won the final event of the day but it was not by enough to close the gap as TCU won Flat by a score of 3-2. Scully, Wynne Weatherly, and Sydnie Young all picked up wins in Flat for the Frogs. TCU will have another opportunity to clinch a share of the Big 12 title with a meet against Baylor at home coming up on March 4th this Saturday before the Big 12 tournament championship on March 24th and 25th.