Heading into the Tritonman Triathlon in San Diego, California, with their student leaders,
Stephen Garr and
Shoshanah Stukas, both sidelined due to injury, the new-look
Grand Canyon University Club Triathlon team showed plenty of promise on their own with two top-50 finishes in their respective divisions as well as a pair of finishes in the event's top 100 finishers. Lopes' freshman
J.P. Markowski led the way for the Lopes, hitting the final tape at one hour, ten minutes and 59 seconds to narrowly finish outside the top 50 overall. Meanwhile, fellow returner
Jacob Barnhart snuck into the top 100 of the event (which for the second year in a row was reduced to a duathlon due to chilly water temperatures), and
Lopes' Assistant Coach Matt Johnson finished just 81 seconds behind Barnhart in 87
th place in his age group. The highest Lopes' finish among age groups, though, belonged to Lopes' junior
Zoie Eserman, who placed 34
th among collegiate females with a time of 1:20:41 in her first-ever triathlon.
"Tritonman was a great race to kick off our spring semester," said Garr, who had to scratch himself from the lineup the morning of the race due to tightness in his hamstring. "Matt was the only returner racing on Sunday, showing his experience with a top 15 bike time for the collegiate men. Jacob and J.P. were the other two athletes who had prior racing experience, both showing great results throughout the race, and Zoie just crushed her first race as well."
Eserman and
Malakai Sawyer led the list of five Lopes entering their first event, and didn't look the part of newbies at all. They rivaled each other throughout the race, with Sawyer hitting the tape at 1:18:57, while fellow newcomers
David Weide and
Joseph Dabisch ended their inaugural races within 10 minutes of Sawyer's time.
"David and Joey have come very far in their swimming ability over the past few months, so it was great to see them come out of the water at great spots," said Garr. "Both had solid bike times and runs with David fighting some hamstring and back pain toward the end, but not letting up. Malakai showed his expertise in cycling with the 32
nd fastest bike time in the collegiate men, while
Abby (Smith) – also in her first race- pushed hard until the end, getting a top-100 collegiate female run time."
The colder weather shortened the field to 412 participants for Sunday's event (there were nearly 500 in 2024), and only five of them finished the race in under an hour.
The Lopes' full results from the Tritonman Triathlon are below:
