EDMOND, Okla. (Nov. 11, 2021) – Cheyenne Parks has proven herself as one of Oklahoma Christian's most versatile swimmers and the sophomore from Guthrie showed Thursday she's mastered one of her sport's distance events.

Parks, who excels at seemingly every stroke, posted a NCAA Division II B-cut qualifying time of 5:03.73 while outdueling teammate Kayci McKinnon to win the 500-yard freestyle on the opening night of the Eagle Invitational at the Mitch Park YMCA pool. Parks' time was more than a second better than the B-cut minimum time of 5:04.84 that could qualify a swimmer for the Division II Championship meet in March.

Parks was slightly ahead of McKinnon most of the way, and although McKinnon – a sophomore from Trophy Club, Texas, who's OC's record-holder in the event – closed the gap a bit in the middle of the race, she wasn't able to catch Parks in the closing stretch and took second in 5:05.33. Sophomore Mallory Mead of Timonium, Md., completed the 1-2-3 sweep for the Eagles, taking third in 5:09.30.

In a time trial earlier in the day, Parks shattered the school record in the 200 butterfly, posting a time of 2:03.79 that was considerably lower than the NCAA B-cut time of 2:05.34 and should put Parks in good position to perhaps qualify for the national meet in that event, too. The previous OC mark was 2:07.49, set by Brenda Mendes at the 2019 Tiger Invitational in San Antonio.

Second-year freshman Olivia Rollen of Edmond won the 50 freestyle with a time of 24.21 seconds and played key roles on the Eagles' two winning relay teams. She led off the 200 freestyle relay squad, which also included Hope Hill, Vivian Pitsch and Andrea Rogers, that prevailed in 1:37.03.

In the 400 medley relay, Pitsch, Rogers, Parks and Rollen teams to win in 3:57.91, after posting a preliminary time of 3:56.84 in the morning session.

On the schedule for Friday in the meet will be the 400 individual medley, the 100 butterfly, the 200 freestyle, the 100 breaststroke and the 100 backstroke. Prelims will begin at 10 a.m., with the finals to start at 7 p.m.

The meet includes teams from OC, fellow Division II programs Texas-Permian Basin and Ouachita Baptist (Ark.) and Barton (Kan.) Community College. OC led after the first day with 382 team points, followed by Ouachita Baptist at 276, UTPB at 176 and Barton at 135.

Meet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyDdrVNnQFI

Josh Davis discusses the meet's first day: https://youtu.be/TXbN5OYC79E