HOUSTON – Seeking its third straight conference title, the San Diego State swim and dive program took its first step toward achieving that goal on Wednesday after finishing atop the team standings through three events at the 2024 Mountain West Championships inside CRWC Natatorium on the University of Houston campus.
The Aztecs compiled up 196 points on the day, maintaining the top perch over second-place Wyoming (152 pts), while Nevada (151 pts) is slotted a close third, followed by UNLV (144 pts) and Air Force (126).
Exemplifying the entire 2023-24 season, SDSU set the tone in the first swimming competition of the meet with a victory in the 200 medley relay, as the quartet of Alex Roberts, Christiana Williams, Mai McKenna and Meredith Smithbaker joined forces for a winning time of 1:37.94, which ranks seventh in program history.
With Wednesday's result, the Aztecs captured the gold medal in the 200 medley relay for the sixth straight season at the conference meet.
In addition, the Scarlet and Black placed third in the 800 freestyle relay, as the foursome of Reka Nyiradi, Wilma Johansson, Avery Turney and Paige Mitchell combined to finish the race with a clocking of 7:15.65, finishing behind teams from Wyoming (7:11.15) and UNLV (7:13.41).
In 1-meter springboard competition, SDSU had four divers qualify for the final round, including Valentina Lopez Arevalo, who earned a silver medal after posting a career-best score of 328.70 points, which ranks second in program history. Along with her Aztec teammate, Summer Westmoreland surpassed an NCAA Zone qualifying standard with a season-best 296.50 pts to finish the event in sixth place.
The SDSU finals delegation also included Olivia Zamudio, who placed 13th in the event with a final-round score of 250.50 points, while Jessica Schroeder followed closely in the 15th position (219.45 pts) after logging a season-high total of 243.15 points in the preliminaries.
The Mountain West Championships resume on Thursday with the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle and 400 medley relay, along with 3-meter springboard diving. Preliminaries are scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. CT/8:30 a.m. PT, with finals expected to start at 6 p.m. CT/4 p.m. PT. Links to streaming video and live results may be found on GoAztecs.com.
Aztecs Lead After Day One at MW Championships
