Two podium sweeps and a new SCIAC record by
Valerie Mello propelled the Sagehens of Pomona-Pitzer Colleges into the lead on Day Three of the 2025 SCIAC Swimming & Diving Championship.
Championship Central
Day One Recap
Day Two Recap
Day Three Results
Pomona-Pitzer flipped a 38-point deficit to an 84-point lead behind consecutive podium sweeps of the 200-yard Individual Medley and 200 Freestyle. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges trail the Sagehens’ 714 points while still almost 300 ahead of third-place Chapman University, which rode its first individual women’s title since 2014 to vault into third on 340 points ahead of California Lutheran University, which sits at 296 points. Caltech remained in fifth place with 247 points, followed by Occidental College (229), Whittier College (142), the University of Redlands (118) and the University of La Verne (74).
Mello posted the highlight of the night with wire-to-wire dominance of the 200 Free, taking it out in blazing-fast splits of 24.47 and 51.95 that led the field by more than two seconds and finding enough left in the tank to clock a 1:49.78 and sneak under the previous SCIAC record set by 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year
Alex Turvey just last season.
Bennett Jones, last year’s Newcomer of the Year, repeated as the 400 IM champion with
Emmie Appl and
Karolina Dzieciol rounding out the podium, followed by Mello’s victory ahead of teammates
Charlotre Dixon and
Nina Aballea.
Graeleigh Jones also made a return to the podium in style, surmounting it with a victory in the 100 Breast just ahead of teammate
Francesca Coppo, while two Sagehen rookies finished at the top of the 100 Back, with
Izzy Yoon taking gold in 56.04 and
Amaia Sherman taking silver. The 400 Medley Relay quartet of Yoon, Jones,
Mary Louise Leopold and Aballea rounded out the bevy of Sagehen victories on the night.
Kiana Tanizaki-Hudson opened the night with a fireworks display in the 100 Fly as the senior led the field by more than a second after the first 50 and closed with a characteristically superb underwater on the final 25 for a time of 54.39 to win the Panthers’ first individual women’s title since 2014. The senior bookended the night playing a key role on the third-place 400 Medley Relay just behind CMS in second.
The fourth and final day of the meet will include the 200 Back, 100 Free, 200 Breast and 200 Fly in the morning preliminaries, with all but the top eight seeds in the 1650 Free to follow. That top eight will open the evening finals session, which will be concluded with the 400 Free Relay.
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