SAN ANTONIO, Texas, February 17. NEVADA captured its first Western Athletic Conference Women's Swimming and Diving Championship on Saturday night at the Palo Alto College Natatorium in San Antonio, Texas. The Wolf Pack finished the meet with 810.5 points followed by Hawai\u2018i, last year's champion, with 730. It was the most points scored by Nevada in a WAC Championship. Northern Arizona was third with 625, while San Jose State placed fourth with 430.5. New Mexico State finished fifth with 359 followed by Idaho (350), San Diego (245) and Boise State (110).<\/p>\n
For the third-staight year, Hawai\u2018i's Nicole Mackey earned WAC Swimmer of the Year honors. She joins SMU's Martina Moravcova (1997-99) as the only swimmer to earn the award three times. (Mackey also won the WAC's Freshman of the Year award in 2004.) Hawai\u2018i senior Megan Farrow was named the WAC Diver of the Year. The Wolf Pack's head coach Mike Shrader, in his ninth year with Nevada, was named WAC Coach of the Year, while Hawai\u2018i diving coach Mike Brown won his third Diving Coach of the Year honor. Nevada's Margaret Doolittle was the WAC Freshman of the Year giving the Wolf Pack the award for the second straight year as Kim Kabesh won it in 2006.<\/p>\n
In the first race of the night, Hawai\u2018i's Claudia Barsi took gold medal honors in the 1650-yard freestyle with an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 16:39.95. She beat Northern Arizona's Alexis Buckley (16:56.61) who won the event last year. Buckley's teammate, Becky Triemstra, was third in a time of 17:04.62.<\/p>\n
Hawai\u2018i's Nicole Mackey won her third individual gold medal, winning the 200 backstroke for the third time in four years with an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 1:57.72. Nevada's Li Bei won the silver (2:01.87) and San Jose State's Ashley Vrieze took the bronze (2:02.55).<\/p>\n
The Rainbow Wahine won their third straight event of the night when Bache Atkins captured her third gold of the meet, this time in the 100 freestyle with a provisional time of 50.84. Northern Arizona grabbed the other two medals as Corie Collins (50.97) and Rachael Foe (51.11) were second and third, respectively.<\/p>\n
Nevada freshman Margaret Doolittle won her second event of the week with a provisional time of 2:16.75 in the 200 breaststroke. Doolittle won the 100 breaststroke on Friday after taking second place honors in the 200 individual medley on Thursday. JoJo Miller of Idaho was second (2:21.18) while Northern Arizona's Cassie Lyons took third (2:21.84).<\/p>\n
Hawai\u2018i's Mia Broden swept the butterfly events after she won a close race in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:00.32. She beat out Nevada's Kim Kabesh (2:00.52) by two-tenths of a second. Michaela Schmidt gave the Wolf Pack another medal as she was third (2:02.99).<\/p>\n
Megan Farrow of Hawai\u2018i, Friday's 3-meter champion, won the platform diving with a score of 230.40. Nevada's Kristen Littell was second with 228.30 points while Hawai\u2018i's Raquel Bartlow took third (225.60).<\/p>\n
Hawai\u2018i won the final event and its 15th of the meet (out of 21 events) with a provisional time of 3:24.89 in the 400 freestyle relay. Mackey, Karli Rice, Broden and Atkins took home the gold for the Rainbow Wahine. Northern Arizona was second (3:26.69) followed by Nevada (3:26.90).<\/p>\n
Individual Honors (as voted upon by the WAC coaches)
\nSwimmer of the Year-Nicole Mackey, Sr., Hawai\u2018i
\nDiver of the Year-Megan Farrow, Sr., Hawai\u2018i
\nFreshman of the Year-Margaret Doolittle, Nevada
\nDiving Coach of the Year-Mike Brown, Hawai\u2018i
\nCoach of the Year-Mike Shrader, Nevada<\/p>\n
Final Team Scores
\n1. \tNevada \t810.5
\n2. \tHawai`i \t730
\n3. \tNorthern Arizona \t625
\n4. \tSan Jose State \t430.5
\n5. \tNew Mexico State \t359
\n6. \tIdaho \t350
\n7. \tSan Diego \t245
\n8. \tBoise State \t110<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, February 17. NEVADA captured its first Western Athletic Conference Women's Swimming and Diving Championship on Saturday night at the Palo Alto College Natatorium in San Antonio, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n