\t\t\t\t\t2026 Gary Ota Memorial Invitational<\/p>\n
October 16-17, 2026
\nFresno State Aquatics Center, Fresno, California
\nShort Course Yards (25 yards)<\/p>\n
Full Meet Results<\/a> (PDF)<\/p>\n Fresno State\u2019s Jenna Pulkkinen<\/a> kicked off her senior campaign last weekend with an early sub-minute swim in the 100 yard breaststroke at the Gary Ota Invitational.<\/p>\n The meet was hosted by Fresno State and named after former Fresno State assistant Gary Ota, who died last year. Ota had a 63-year coaching career in California<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pulkkinen snagged wins in both the 100 breast (59.76) and the 200 breast (2:11.00), plus the 100 IM.<\/p>\n She flexed her versatility by also swimming a leadoff leg on Fresno State\u2019s winning 400 free relay, where she split 49.87.<\/p>\n That time shows a massive leap forward from this same season opener last year, where she was 1:02.83 and 2:20.35 in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes, respectively. In fact, her 100 breast time from last weekend is just a tenth away from her time at last year\u2019s Mountain West Championships, where she finished 4th.<\/p>\n All three of the swimmers ahead of her graduated. That includes her teammates\u00a0Mackenzie Lung<\/a> (58.17) and\u00a0Aliz Kalmar<\/a> (59.76), plus Washington State\u2019s\u00a0Emily Lundgren<\/a> (59.42). That clears the path for Pulkkinen to win a conference title this year. If she does so in a time faster than 1:00.41, she would earn an automatic berth to the NCAA Championships.<\/p>\n Houston\u2019s\u00a0Evelyn Entrekin<\/a> finished 2nd in 1:00.08. That\u2019s two seconds better than her debut from last season.<\/p>\n The other top performance from this year\u2019s Ota Memorial Invite came from San Diego State junior\u00a0Kaydence Bispo<\/a>. She won the 200 free in 1:46.54, which is a lifetime best for her. Her previous fastest swim came at her last short course meet \u2013 the Mountain West Championships \u2013 where she swam 1:47.30 to place 4th.<\/p>\n The difference was her finishing speed \u2013 of the .76 second improvement, .60 of it came over the final 50 yards.<\/p>\n She now ranks 2nd in school history in the 200 free behind only Wilma Johnson\u2019s school record of 1:46.24 from 2025.<\/p>\n Improved endurance showed up elsewhere in her meet as well. She finished 4th in the 500 free in 4:58.40. While not typically a championship event for her, she typically races it a few times each season and this was a lifetime best by more than seven seconds.<\/p>\n Bispo also won the 100 free in 50.43 and finished 2nd in the 50 free in 22.54.<\/p>\n Team Standings<\/p>\n San Diego State \u2013 1,090.5 Other Notable Results<\/p>\n San Diego State\u2019s\u00a0Ginger Kiefer<\/a> finished 2nd in the 200 fly in 1:59.96, which was her first time under 2 minutes in the race. Her teammate\u00a0Allison Mann<\/a> won in 1:58.73, which was also a lifetime best for her. Kiefer is a senior and Mann is a junior. That was one of five event wins (including relays) for Mann at the meet to lead all swimmers.
\nHouston \u2013 1,072.5
\nFresno State \u2013 772
\nUC Davis \u2013 540
\nSan Jose State \u2013 518<\/p>\n
\nSeveral swimmers set personal bests in the 50 free. In addition to Pulkkinen, San Diego State\u2019s Camille Seiley<\/a> finished 4th in 22.67, Houston\u2019s\u00a0Elizabeth Garrido finished 6th in 22.78, and San Jose State\u2019s\u00a0Dalton Sickon<\/a> finished 7th in 22.82.
\nHouston\u2019s\u00a0Alexia Duncan<\/a> won the 100 back in 53.59, the 200 back in 1:58.02, and the 200 IM in 1:59.83. She also posted lifetime bests leading off both the 200 free relay (23.90) and 200 medley relay (25.19). She is the defending Big 12 Champion in the 100 back and an NCAA qualifier from last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 Gary Ota Memorial Invitational October 16-17, 2026 Fresno State Aquatics Center, Fresno, California Short Course Yards (25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[194486,136320,194487,194488,194489,194490,123018,194491,112,114,113,194492,167740,194493,194494,194495,194496],"class_list":["post-502351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-alexia-duncan","tag-aliz-kalmar","tag-allison-mann","tag-camille-seiley","tag-dalton-sickon","tag-elizabeth-garrido","tag-emily-lundgren","tag-evelyn-entrekin","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-gary-ota","tag-ginger-kiefer","tag-jenna-pulkkinen","tag-kaydence-bispo","tag-mackenzie-lung","tag-wilma-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}