Wyoming swimming and diving opened with a splash this opening weekend with victories for UW diving and the Cowgirls swim team.
At the Wyoming Diving Invitational Friday and Saturday, UW’s diving team won the invite, securing their title as champions for the second year in a row.
“The kids did a great job today and I could not be happier with the effort and I’m very happy where we are (right now),” Wyoming’s diving coach Yahya Radman told gowyo.com at Saturday’s meet.
Kicking off on the right foot, opening day ended for UW diving with Cowboys in the first, second and third rankings in the 3-meter springboard, and Cowgirls at first and second in the synchronized 1-meter dive.
Leading the Pokes in the 3-meter springboard was sophomore diver Jacob Rehmeier with a winning tally of 229.40, followed by freshman diver Ryan Russi at 208.50 and freshman diver Austin Rettinghouse at 205.60.
In the women’s events, junior diver Kari Campbell and sophomore diver Lauren Puglisi with tallies of 210.20 won the synchronized 1-meter dive. Senior diver Holly Heussner and sophomore Keely Bishop at 199.85 placed second. In the women’s 1-meter springboard championships, Wyoming placed second, fourth, sixth and seventh.
Bishop led the women’s diving in second place with a tally of 235.90, followed by Campbell, Heussner and Puglisi.
“Keely had a great night and things are really starting to click for her,” coach Radman said.
The second day of diving Rehmeier was named men’s diver of the meet after placing first again with a tally of 224.15 for the 1-meter springboard championships.
Campbell was able to pull ahead of her competitors and placed first in the women’s 3-meter springboard and earned women’s diver of the meet after her tally of 243.85.
The Cowgirls swim team also had a successful outing against a conference contender, the New Mexico Lobos. The Cowgirls took all 14 events in Corbett pool and beat the Lobos 162-95.
“The goal tonight was to win every event and New Mexico gave us some great runs,” UW head coach Tom Johnson told gowyo.com Thursday. “We knew New Mexico had some great sprinters, but our girls really held their own.”
In single swimmer events, the Cowgirls opened by taking the first and second position in the 100-yard freestyle and the top three positions in the 200 yard freestyle as well as the 100-yard backstroke.
At the top of the pack were Cowgirls junior distance freestyle swimmer Nicole Hlavacek at first in the 100 freestyle, redshirted junior mid distance freestyle swimmer Emily Stucky at the top in the 200 and sophomore backstroke/freestyle swimmer Abby Sullivan at the backstroke.
Cowgirls leading in two events were senior butterfly/IM swimmer Claudia Carlson, junior sprint freestyle swimmer Emily Ridout and freshman breaststroke swimmer Maria Harutjunjan.
“Emily had a really great day today and really battled out there,” Johnson said. “Maria swam very well tonight and we are trying to find another event for her.”
Closing out the eventful weekend, Wyoming swimming and diving took part in the Denver University Relay where the Cowboys placed second with 234 points and the Cowgirls came in third with 174 points against multiple teams in the surrounding regions.
“I was happy with the weekend overall and I thought we swam very well,” coach Johnson said. “We have some things we have to get better at before we face Colorado State and Air Force.”
The Cowboys left Denver with three relay events under their belt and the Cowgirls took three winning events for Wyoming to end the day.
On Oct. 25th, the Cowgirls will return to action against Colorado State in Fort Collins, Colo. at 5:30 pm.
