Five Waves Head to Florida for the National Invitational Championship

MALIBU, Calif. – Five Waves swimmers - Alexandra Browne, Layla Busquets, Ansley Halbach, Charli Sunahara and Sophia Ware are set for the National Invitational Championship in Ocala, Florida this week.

Meet #17 — National Invitational Championship | Thursday, Mar. 13 - Saturday, Mar. 15 | Florida Aquatics Swimming & Training Facility | Ocala, Fla. | Tournament Central

Browne, Busquets, Sunahara and Ware punched their tickets to the NIC after winning the 200 medley relay at the MPSF Championships and setting a new school record with a time of 1:41.84. Halbach earned her spot with her MPSF title in the 400 IM as she clocked a time of 4:28.42. Ware also earned an individual spot in the Championships with her MPSF win and school record in the 100 fly after finishing her swim in 54.70.

EVENTS — The Waves will compete in six individual events and one relay at the National Invitational Championship this week.

Browne: 50 free (Thursday), 100 IM (Saturday), 200 medley relay (Friday)
Busquets: 50 back (Thursday), 200 medley relay (Friday)
Halbach: 400 IM (Friday)
Sunahara: 200 medley relay (Friday)
Ware: 50 fly (Thursday), 100 fly (Friday), 200 medley relay (Friday)

The NIC will be held at the Florida Aquatics Swimming & Training Facility. Prelims will begin at 6:30 a.m. PT before finals at 3:00 p.m. PT each day. In the individual events, the top-20 places in the prelims will qualify for the finals with places 1-10 qualifying for the A final and places 11-20 qualifying for the B final. All relays will be conducted as finals only events.

WATCH/ONLINE — The tournament central page can be found here. The meet will be streamed on Youtube and can be found here and live results can be found on the MeetMobile app (subscription required).

AWARDS — The Waves tallied five conference weekly awards this season. Most recently, Lexie Martin earned the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Athlete of the Week award after two impressive performances on the diving board in the 184-116 win over Azusa Pacific. Martin posted a total of 264.23 points to win her last 3-meter competition at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool, which was also the second best score by a Wave this season. Additionally, she earned a second place finish in the 1-meter with a score of 225.00.

AJ Adams earned the MPSF Athlete of the Week award after winning two events and helping the Waves defeat New Mexico for the first time in program history in a double dual meet in San Diego last weekend.

Madeline Wheeler earned MPSF Athlete of the Week honors on November 18 after becoming the sixth fastest Wave in program history to complete the 1650 free. She finished her swim in 17:39.57, which was also a season-best time for the Waves. Wheeler also clocked a 5:18.83 in the 500 free, good for the seventh fastest time by a Wave during the 2024-25 campaign.

Alexandra Browne garnered the MPSF Athlete of the Week award on October 29. Prior to the honor, Browne won all four of her events in Pepperdine's dual meet against Westmont at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool. She helped the Waves 400 medley and 200 free relay teams take first, while also winning both of her individual races.

Vivian Vallely earned the MPSF Athlete of the Week award on October 8. Highlighted by her second place finish with a score of 283.50 in the 3-meter competition on Friday, Vallely qualified for NCAA Zones in the event for the second year in a row. She then earned another second place finish as she totaled 254.95 points in the 1-meter competition on Saturday.

LAST TIME IN THE POOL — Winning its third conference championship in four years, the Pepperdine swim and dive team came out on top at the 2025 MPSF Championships in St. George, Utah a few weeks ago.

In total, Pepperdine set five new school records, won five MPSF event championships and had 43 top-8 individual performances en route to the title.

FOLLOW — Follow @WavesSwimDive on Facebook and X for immediate updates, results and more. Find the Waves on Instagram @waveswimdive. Go to pepperdinewaves.com for all information, releases and schedules.

Five Waves Head to Florida for the National Invitational Championship

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Players Mentioned

AJ Adams

Alexandra Browne

Layla Busquets

Ansley Halbach

Lexie Martin

Charli Sunahara

Vivian Vallely

Sophia Ware

Madeline Wheeler

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