ALISO VIEJO, CA- The Soka University Lions hosted the largest swim meet in school history on Saturday afternoon at the Soka Aquatics Center.

The day kicked off with Soka's sophomore Wyatt Balman and first-year Landon Theiss singing a touching rendition of the National Anthem, which was immediately followed by the first event of the day; the women's 200 Yard Medley Relay. Soka's Sophia Greco, Clarissa Cheam, Sydney Sansbury, and Sachiko Hagiya placed seventh overall, and earned the Auto-Cut to NAIA Nationals with their final time of 1:59.01.

The women also produced a stellar 200 Free Relay race, with Kassandra Gregory, Lisa Ransom, Sansbury and Hagiya earning the Auto-Cut with a final time of 1:50.20.

Also punching their ticket to NAIA Nationals was the men's 200 Yard Medley Relay team comprised of Howard Lin, Mason Malina, Wyatt Balman, and Yoshki Wurtz. They touched in finishing sixth overall with a final time of 1:50.27.

Soka senior Clarissa Cheam took home the third place finish in the women' 200 Yard Breaststroke race, as well as posting a NAIA Nationals qualifying time of 2:34.62.

Overall, the Concordia University took home the Soka Invitational crown, with their women scoring 374 points, and their men scoring 429. Both Soka's Men's (93 points) and Women's (144 points) teams placed sixth overall respectively.  

"It was great for the team to get back to racing after having been off from competition for the past four weeks," said Head Coach Adam Crossen. "We saw lots of the improvements in our race plans that we have been working on, as well as a significant improvement in our overall performance and fitness.  Having the meet at home was great for our family and friends, plus I think that it provided the campus with something to take their mind off of the stresses of the school year.  Our results today have us ready to perform at our best in Chicago in two weeks.  We are exactly where our team needs to be at this point in the season to reach our end of the year goals."

Up next, the Lions will travel to University of Chicago Phoenix Fall Classic on Friday Nov. 22, 2019.