Utah Swim and Dive dominated the University of Nevada Las Vegas in their home opener on Friday night.
Both the men’s and women’s teams took care of business in blow-out fashion. The men won 187-113 while the women won by a score of 179-119. The combined win margin of 134 allowed the Utes to glide to a relatively stress-free victory, moving their record to 2-0 on the year.
After the competition, head coach Jonas Persson said, “Today was a solid meet and I am very happy with how we did today. People are tired and fatigued and working hard, but we’re racing well and we pulled off a nice couple of wins today,” indicating resilience across his teams, a great sign of things to come for the Utes.
Some standout performances from the freshmen included Jones Lambert’s 1000-yard freestyle at a time of 9:29.19 and Strahinja Maslo earning gold in the 400-yard IM with a time of 3:58.84.
Sophomores Ella Derby and Jakub Walter won gold in the 400-IM and 200-free with times of 4:29.09 and 1:39.51.
The list of juniors for the Utes who were able to take home gold medals in their respective events consists of Evan VanBrocklin, Erin Palmer, Brandon Miller and Elias Petersen.
Seniors Holly Waxman and Norah Hay took home gold medals as well, with Waxman securing two in diving events.
A grand total of 18 gold medals is a very impressive accomplishment for the swim and dive teams. Coach Persson hopes to continue to build on this success.
“I’m really happy with how we pulled this off,” he said. “Now I feel like we’re ready and we know that the training is working, we know that they have a great mental attitude and the culture is coming in nicely — it’s looking right for the season.”
Looking forward, the divers will head to Austin, Texas for the Texas Diving Invitational while the swimmers split up for the CMU and Texas A&M Invitationals. These events will span Nov. 15-23.
