Old Conference Rivals BYU, UNLV Put On Exciting Meet In Provo

PROVO, Utah, November 9. BYU and UNLV may not race in the same conference anymore, but the rivalry between the two schools is still going strong, and after an exciting afternoon of racing, the two teams split their dual meet in Provo on Saturday. The UNLV men (160-140) and BYU women (198-102) earned the victories. The two teams will meet again in two weeks at the UNLV Invitational, where both teams hope to post some NCAA qualifying marks.

BYU Press Release

BYU men’s and women’s swimming and diving split wins with UNLV Saturday at the Richards Building pool. The women were victorious over UNLV scoring 198-102 while the men fell 140-160.

“Our women swam well across the board and rebounded well after Boise State,” BYU head coach John Brooks said. “For the men, we knew it was going to be a battle, and we knew it was going to be tough. But UNLV is fast and we did as well as we were hoping to do, but we needed to win one more event in order for us to win the meet, and it came down to the last relay.”

The women opened up the meet with a big win in the 200 medley relay. The team of Hailey Campbell, Brittani Finlayson, Kimberly Doroghian and Alexandria Sorensen won the event with a time of 1:45.12. On the men’s side, the team of Rainer Ng, Chad Sorensen, Lucas Aquino and Jordan Fletcher earned second, coming up just under a second shy of UNLV.

Alexandra Dodds and Camille Okelberry went first (10:37.27) and second (10:39.87), respectively, in the women’s 1000 free distance event.

Campbell earned her first individual win of the day in the 100 back, touching the wall in just 55.72. Ng also earned his first win of the day in a time of 49.35.

Riley Buer recorded her first win of the season, swimming the 100 breast in 1:07.30. For the men, Andrew Rutherfurd came in second, close behind UNLV in a time of 57.72.

In the women’s 200 fly, Doroghian was victorious for the Cougars, finishing in 2:05.79 with teammates Zerlynn Tiang and Jessica Ampuero following in the second- and third-place positions.

Aquino earned second in the men’s 200 fly in a time of 1:53.08 to place in the event for the Cougars.
BYU competed well in the sprint events also. Sorensen earned a second place finish in the women’s 50 free, touching the wall in 24.08, just one tenth of a second shy of the win. For the men’s team, Fletcher also earned second with a time of 20.42.

The men and women were victorious in the diving pool, taking first and second place in both the 1- and 3- meter.

“I think we did great today, and we’re showing great progression,” head diving coach Keith Russell said. “I am excited for the University of Arizona Invite, and if we can do what we did today then we’ll do great there too.”
Raleigh Williams Taylor took first place in the women’s 3-m with a score of 268.80. Mackenzie Rands and Haley Francois helped with the sweep, taking second and third. In the 1-m, Taylor took first again with 278.25 followed by teammate Megan Johnson who scored 237.075.

Nicholas Suder won both events against UNLV for the second year in a row, scoring 322.575 in the men’s 1-m and 309.90 in the 3-m. Matt Hopper took second in the 1-m, and Edward Young earned second in the 3-m and third in the 1-m.

In the women’s 200 breast, Buer earned her second victory of the day with a time of 2:25.48. Johanna Skaggs came in close behind in 2:25.87. On the men’s side, Rafael Alfaro finished second (2:05.06) in the event in a very close race against UNLV.

In the women’s 100 fly, Doroghian finished first again in 55.59 for her second individual victory of the day. Fletcher earned the win for the men, swimming the event in 49.67.

Ampuero recorded her first win of the day in the 200 individual medley. She finished in 2:08.36 with teammate Buer close behind.

The women closed the meet with an exciting victory in the 400 free relay. The team of Campbell, Doroghian, Sorensen and Andrea Grant completed the event in 3:29.31. The team of Stott Bushnell, McKay King, Rutherfurd and Jake Taylor completed the men’s event in 3:03.50, five tenths off of the winning time, just short of the event victory and maybe the meet victory.

The Cougars take a week off before heading to UNLV, who will host the UNLV Invite on Nov. 21-23.

UNLV Press Release

The UNLV men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams split a dual meet at BYU on Saturday afternoon, as the No. 25/18 Rebel men evened their record at 2-2 with a 160-140 win, while the UNLV women (0-4) were handed a 198-102 setback.

In the men’s meet, the Rebels won a total of 11 events, paced by triple-event winner Giacomo Gremizzi. The senior claimed first place finishes in the 200 free (1:40.17), the 200 breast (2:04.88) and in the 200 IM (1:50.14). Matt Roe claimed both distance events, posting winning times of 4:40.87 in the 500 free and 9:45.68 in the 1000 free. Single event winners for the Rebels included David Szele in the 100 breast (56.45), Balint Batka (1:49.62), Dillon Virva in the 50 free (20.18) and Tom Paco-Pedroni (46.33).

The Rebels swept both relays, winning the opening event, the 200 medley relay, in a time of 1:30.49. Henrique Machado, Szele, Virva and Paco-Pedroni made up that first relay squad. Samuel Lameynardie, Dylan Tarazona, JR Deem and Guilherme Passos won the day’s final event, the 400 free relay with a time of 3:03.00.

UNLV’s women were led by Julia Fehervari and Jessica Heim, who won four of the five free events. Fehervari won sprint events, taking the 50 free in 23.98, and added a first place swim in the 100 free in 52.48. Heim meanwhile was first in both the 200 (1:53.46) and the 500 (5:07.82) free events. Jessica Wong added a fifth win for UNLV, coming first in the 200 back (2:05.69).

The next action for the UNLV squads will be on Nov. 21-23 at the UNLV Fall Invitational, held on the UNLV campus inside Buchanan Natatorium.

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