LONG BEACH -- After three days of competition at the Toshiba Classic the BYU women’s swim team came out fifth out of 25 teams overall while the men finished sixth out of 14 teams.

John Kendrick started off Saturday by placing 15th in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 16:03.23. Natasha Menezes finished 14th in the same event for the women with a time of 17:03.24.

Jeff Ferrell placed the highest for the Cougars in the 200 backstroke with a preliminary time of 1:51.43 and a final time of 1:52.70 in 11th. Sophomore Candice Smith finished fifth in the 200 back with a final time of 1:59.99.

David Mason represented the Cougars in the 100 free, placing 16th with a preliminary time of 46.22 and a final time of 46.27. On the women’s side, Aleesha Miller placed 12th with a final time of 51.38 to lead the Cougars.

Vytenis Slenys placed high for the Cougars in the 200 breaststroke in seventh with a final time of 2:04.60 while freshman Londyn Clawson finished 28th in the same event with a time of 2:23.27.

Rachel Grant placed the highest on the day for the Cougars in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:59.87 in fourth. On the men’s side, Ryan Bills placed 26th with a final time of 1:56.92.

To finish up the Toshiba Classic was the 400-free relay team of Christian Keil, Kendrick, Daniel Bates and Mason finished fourth in the event with a time of 3:05.75. The women placed third in the 400-free relay with Kirsty Ferrell, N. Menezes, Sara Jayne Christiansen Baldwin and Miller making up the team that earned a 3:24.53.

The swimmers will next compete at short course nationals in Federal Way, Wash. Dec. 3-5.

For day two's results, click HERE.

PROVO -- After a week-long rest the BYU swim team will travel to Long Beach, Calif. for the Toshiba Classic Nov. 19-21 for one of the fastest West Coast meets of the season and the divers will travel to Tucson, Ariz. for the Wildcat Diving Invitational to be held Nov. 20-21 with some of the top divers in the country.

“The meet is going to be contagiously exciting and we are looking forward to a highly competitive meet,” BYU head coach Tim Powers said. “It’s going to be fun to see how our team responds to such a challenging atmosphere.”

On the men’s side, the Toshiba Classic will feature 14 squads, including Stanford, the third-place finisher at the 2009 NCAA Division I National Championships. The women’s field includes 26 teams, with defending national champion California to lead the pack.

The diving team will also perform at a highly competitive meet at the University of Arizona on Friday and Saturday.

“We’ll be competing with all the Big 10 schools,” BYU diving coach Keith Russell said. “It will be a really tough competition, but we’re looking forward to competing with the big time schools. It’s not going to be easy – we’ll be diving against some Olympians and others that have made great strides in diving.”

For the Toshiba Classic, Coach Powers expressed the lack of depth the men’s team will struggle with, “We are only taking 15 guys and the meet has 32 places in each event, so it will be hard to have an impact on the team placing. However, we still want to swim well and establish good times.”

“The women should do well in this exciting meet,” said Powers. “We are bringing 24 girls that are going to be challenged, but we expect to do great things.”

The Toshiba Classic will have time trials in the morning for approximately five hours and finals at night for about three hours. Check back to www.byucougars.com/swimming_diving for updates on the Toshiba Classic and Wildcat Diving Invitational Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.