Feb. 19, 2014
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -
San Diego State won both relays on opening day of the 2014 Mountain West Swimming & Diving Championships being contested in San Antonio, Texas, and find itself in third place. After the first three events of the meet the Aztecs trail leader Nevada by 27 points and second-place Boise State by eight.
SDSU got the evening's finals session off to a fine start by capturing top sport in the 200 medley relay. The foursome of Anika Apostalon, Laura Day, Samantha Guttmacher and Whitney Weisz turned in a time of 1:37.97, a mark that was just .04 second off the conference and school record. The time was an NCAA "A" qualifying mark, a standard which automatically qualifies for the NCAA Championships next month at the University of Minnesota.
The night's second event, the 1-meter springboard diving, saw the Aztecs shut out for team points. SDSU's top finisher in the prelims, freshman Marlee Kersting, tallied a score of 227.10 to place 17th. She was just .03 point behind the 16th-place finisher which would have qualified for the consolation round. Sophomore Ashley Stott was 20th in the prelims with a mark of 225.42.
San Diego State capped off the evening by taking first in the 800 freestyle relay with a time that established school and pool records and was also another NCAA"A" cut mark. This time it was the quartet of Frida Berggren, Mikaela Macklin, Natilee Ruiz and Savannah Miller that went 7:06.64 to win the event. Macklin's effort in the second leg of the race turned a half-length deficit into three-length lead and her teammates widened the margin for there to finish over five seconds ahead of second-place Nevada. In addition, Berggren's opening leg time of 1:47.65 goes into the Aztec record book as the fourth-fastest time in program history.
Action continues at the championship meet on Thursday (Feb. 20) with prelims in the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle getting under at 11:00 a.m. CT (9:00 a.m. PT). Prelims for the 3-meter diving will start at 12:30 p.m. MT (10:30 a.m. PT).
Live video of Thursday's prelim is available by clicking here and live results can be accessed by clicking here. Thursday evening's finals will start at 6:30 p.m. CT (4:30 p.m. PT).
TEAM SCORES 1. Nevada...........107 2. Boise State.......88 3. San Diego State...80 4. New Mexico........65 5. Wyoming...........65 6. Colorado State....64 7. UNLV..............60 8. Air Force.........58 9. San Jose State....5410. Fresno State.....50