The Utah women’s swimming and diving team upset the UNLV Rebels Saturday, winning nine of the 16 events in a 149.5-148.5 thriller. Despite some stellar individual performances, the Utah men’s team fell to the Rebels, 170-124. The women kicked off their MWC season opener with a huge statement victory, led by sophomore Hannah Caron who finished first in the 200 fly (2:05.35), the 100 fly (57.45) and the 200 IM (2:05.41), as well as contributing to the first-place 200 medley relay team (1:47.81). Also on the 200 medley relay team were senior Beth Gunderson and juniors Maiya Otsuka and Natalie Edge. Another notable performance on the women’s side was freshman Kayla Buck, who blew the field away, finishing first in the 1000 free (10:41.82), nearly five seconds ahead of second place. The diving competition was topped by junior Kwan Ling Yu and freshman Ellis Walters, who swept the top two spots in both events, which has been done twice in three meets this season for the Utah women’s team.
Improving their record to the .500 mark at 2-2, the now confident women’s team is looking ahead to the home quad meet that will take place Saturday at 1 p.m., against Boise State (6-1), Seattle (3-2) and New Mexico (2-2). The Utah women had great success last year against Boise State and New Mexico, as they defeated New Mexico 158-84 in their last meeting, and beat Boise State twice over a two-day period, 175-66 and 197-84. This will be the first ever meeting against the Division II squad Seattle University Redhawks, who are coming off a recent loss to University of the Pacific, 111-94.
The WAC Conference Boise State team is riding its own wave of confidence, as it just defeated a PAC-10 Conference team for the first time in school history, beating Washington State 178-116.
“Boise State is a much improved team this year. They have a young team with a lot of talent,” said head coach Greg Winslow, “We have to be aggressive from the start of a meet and have to swim with confidence. With those things in place, we’ll see a lot more success.”
In the upcoming meet, the men’s team will only compete against Seattle University, which last dominated the University of the Pacific, 127-79. In spite of the tough loss against undefeated UNLV, the men’s team is looking to respond to the surge of confidence shown by the spectacular top performances against the Rebels by senior John Baque, who finished first in the 200 IM (1:58.93), and sophomore Major Robinson, who won after a resilient come-from-behind victory in the 200 back (1:52.30). In the 200 IM, the Utes took a clean sweep of the race as senior David Pursley and freshman Bryan Michaels finished second and third. With a victory against the Seattle Redhawks this weekend, the Utah men’s team would improve their overall record to 2-2.