BYU Sweeps Wyoming

LARAMIE, Wyo, January 24. IN one of the fastest meets in Corbett Pool history, the University of Wyoming fell to BYU on both the men's and women's side of a MWC dual. The BYU men beat Wyoming 149-90 while the BYU women edged the Cowgirls 125-118.

A total of five Corbett Pool records were broken on the day, four by the BYU cougars and one by the Cowboys. Wyoming All-American Scott Usher set a new mark in the 100 breaststroke — 55.45 seconds — breaking his own record from a year ago.

The first Cougar record came in the 200 medley relay where Mark Chay, Nicholas Tobler, Kenny Carpenter and James Bekker swam a time of 1:32.12 to break Wyoming's record of 1:33.00 set last season. Diogo de Oliveria Yabe set a new pool record in the 100 butterfly with his time of 49.87 which was previously held by BYU's Rod Strate and was set in 1984. Nikki Xanthos broke the only women's record that fell on the day. Her time of 1:05.04 in the 100 breaststroke breaks UNLV's Shayna Burns record from a year ago. The BYU men also set a new Pool record in the 200 freestyle relay when Chay, Bekker, Yabe and Ryan Mullen swam a time of 1:22.49 breaking BYU's mark set in 2002.

On the women's side of the dual, The Cowgirls (2-7, 1-4 MWC), were edged by BYU in the final event of the day. BYU entered the 200 freestyle relay with a two-point lead and Nichole Tolley, Sarah Woodbury, Hannah Palmer and Brittany Davis swam a 1:37.36 to edge Wyoming and give BYU the win.

The Cowgirls won seven of 13 events on the day, five of which coming from freshman. Freshman Saara Haapanen started the meet with a bang by winning both diving events. She finished with a scores of 255.38 on the 1-meter and 267.00 on the 3-meter. Junior Kristin Lewis also was a two-event winner, winning both the 500 and 1000 freestyle. She swam to a time of 5:20.56 in the 500 and 10:56.28 in the 1000. Freshmen Lauren Beard, Heidi Thorson and Tamara went on a three event tear winning the 400 IM, 100 butterfly and 100 freestyle consecutively. Beard started things off winning the 400 IM in a time of 4:43.91, Thorson then swam a 1:00.00 100 butterfly and finally Lehnertz swam a 53.51 in the 100 freestyle.

"I am very proud of the way our women battled today," said UW head coach Tom Johnson. "I feel bad for our girls because they gave so much but couldn't get the win. In hindsight, there were a lot of different places we could have won the meet and the girls need to see that and be proud of their effort. I feel like we let one get away from us, hopefully we can get them at conference."

The Cowboys, (4-5, 0-3 MWC) won just one event on the day, Scott Usher's record-breaking 100 breaststroke.

"We knew our guys were going to have a hard time against a very talented and very deep team," added Johnson. "Scott's pool record is a great swim, I thought he raced very smart. I also thought Gene Birks gave a great effort today in both the 50 free and 100 fly."

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