The third annual A3 Performance Invitational hosted by UC-San Diego was held over the weekend in East Los Angeles, California. The highlight of Fall competition for many of the competing teams did not disappoint! After a lot of great racing, the UCLA Women and the UC-Santa Barbara Men walked away with team championships. The first day of the meet was dominated by freshmen! The top three finishers in the women's 500 FR were ALL freshmen in both the prelims and finals session. In finals it was San Diego State University freshman Mckenna Meyer who beat the field by more than three seconds for first place. Meyer also went on to win the women's 400 IM. On the men's side, seven of the top 16 in the 500 FR were freshmen. The underclassmen domination continued in the 50 FR, in which the top four female finishers were underclassmen, three of them were freshmen. In the men's 50 FR, it wasn't so much underclassmen domination as it was University of California-Santa Barbara domination! The top three men in the 50 were all UCSB swimmers. First place went to Mason Tittle who finished with a 19.91 that cause the aquatic center to go nuts! The second day of racing was less domination and more tight competition as most of the first and second place finishes were within tenths of each other. Stand out swims were Franzi Weidner in the women's 2 FR (win by 1.5 seconds), Heaven Quintana in the women's 100 BR (win by 1.1 seconds), Linnea Mack in the women's 100 BK (win by 2.2 seconds), and Metin Aydin in the men's 100 Bk (win by 1.7 seconds). The last day of racing always separates the tough from the tired, and the UCLA women showed no signs of slowing down. After a long two days of racing, UCLA finished the meet with first place finishes in five of the six events. Even more impressive, the Bruins went 1-2-3 in the mile! On the men's side, the last day showed a strong fight from the UCSD men. Gabriel Hernandez of UCSD fought hard for a first place finish in the men's 200 FL, narrowly edging out a UCSB swimmer by 0.12! The UCSD Triton men took second overall. One team that consistently performed throughout the meet was the University of Hawaii. Under the direction of first-time head coach Dan Schemmel, the Bows were consistently in the top 8 and racing for first in the relays. Even more exciting is both male and female swimmers of the meet were the University of Hawaii Bows team captains. The female swimmer of the meet was Franzi Weidner, who finished 2nd in the 100 FR (48.66), and 1st in both the 200 FR (1:46.71) and 200 IM (1:57.92). The male swimmer of the meet was co-captain Metin Aydin, who won the men's 200 IM (1:45.74), 100 BK (47.57), and 200 BK (1:43.15)! [gallery link="none" ids="32838,32839,32840" orderby="rand"] Major points for team champions UCLA and UCSB were earned in the relays. UCLA swept four of the five relays on the women's side while UCSB swept all five of the relays. Congratulations to all of the teams who competed at the third annual A3 Performance Invitational. We are already looking forward to next year's invite! See the full meet results for the A3 Performance Invitational here: http://swimresults.takeitlive.tv/bp/A3_2016/