Both in and out of the water, senior Jack Burton has been a leader for the University of Utah swim and dive team, and Saturday was no exception. With first and third place finishes in the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke events respectively, Burton led the way for the men’s team in a 171-123 victory over UNLV. The women outscored the Rebels, 188-107 at the Ute Natatorium.
Burton was not the only upperclassman to impress. Paul Ungur clocked a 48.34 first place finish in the 100-yard butterfly event. Junior Genevieve Robertson came in first place in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:18.94, and junior Daniel McArthur also finished in first place but in the 200-yard backstroke after earning a time of 1:53.11.
Another Ute who had a standout performance was sophomore Rahiti De Vos, who convincingly won the 500 freestyle event. He finished with a time of 4:34.49, which was nearly 10 seconds faster than the second place finisher.
“He was solid in the 500,” said head coach Joe Dykstra. “That was probably not his season best time, but it was probably his best split race of the season, just the most in control, so that was good.”
Utah took the majority of points in each of the 32 events, and Dykstra was proud of how his team performed despite having a short turnaround between meets.
“I thought it was a real solid day for us. We have a little bit of what I call race fatigue because we’ve had [a] meet for four consecutive weeks, that’s pretty unusual in our sport,” Dykstra said. “But we got through that, and I know the team is tired, but they performed admirably, the spirit, the energy and the effort was great. That’s really all I can ask for.”
The success for Utah continued on the diving side of things. In the men’s 1-meter diving event, the top two divers were Utes. Nathan Makarewicz continued his stellar season with first place scores in both the 1 meter and 3 meter dives. With that result, Makarewicz set two personal bests, including moving to fourth all time in Utah diving history in the 1 meter.
“Nathan’s been awesome,” said head diving coach Richard Marschner. “He’s been doing really good stuff, he made some good changes today [Saturday].”
In the women’s 1 meter diving event, first and third place finishes went to two Utah freshmen. Clare Greenlow took first in that event, while Emma Ruchala claimed third, and she took second in the 3 meter dive as well.
“Emma same thing, she had two personal bests today [Saturday] as well,” Marschner said. “So she’s making some good changes, she’s doing really good stuff.”
Utah looks to carry its momentum to the Art Adamson Invitational that gets underway on Thursday, Nov. 16 in College Station, Texas.
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