By Joanna Caldwell
The women”s swimming and diving team bucked the Wyoming Cowgirls Saturday, Jan. 26, in a close meet, improving their standing to 7-3.
The team, which is undefeated in dual meets in the conference, lengthened their winning streak to four as they slipped past Wyoming with a score of 131-112, taking first place in nine of 13 events.
“It was an incredibly close meet. Our hats off to Wyoming, they came to compete,” head coach Stan Crump said. “Our swimmers responded well to the challenge.”
The meet was capped off by a star performance from All-American Cortnee Adams. With Wyoming trailing by just one point and only two events left to swim, Adams conquered the 100-breast stroke, a race she doesn”t normally participate in, with a time of 1:05.74.
Adams said she swam the 100-breast last year at Auburn and had been asking the coach to swim it sometime this season.
Just minutes after her unexpected victory, Adams narrowly out swam Wyoming as the anchor to the 200 freestyle relay team, winning by only half a second. The relay team, also including Heidi Lietz, Melissa Busby and Ashlee Rumfallow, finished the race with a time of 1:38.10.
“I swam pretty well on Saturday,” Adams said. “I was happy with how I did.”
Adams also won the 100 free with a time of 51.90.
Other firsts came from Heidi Lietz, who posted times of 24.55 for the 50 free and 59.85 for the 100 free. Freshman Nichole Burrows won the 100 backstroke while sophomore Monica Ferrell saw victory in the 1000 free.
“It was fun to come from behind and end up winning,” Ferrell said. “It would have been a long ride home if we hadn”t.”
Ferrell and Adams both said a mid-meet pep talk from the coach helped them pull together and work hard for their better events in the second half of the meet.
“We just challenged them to come out and compete,” Crump said. “They”re good enough competitors to respond to that.”
The divers also had reason to cheer with Kelli Einfeldt taking first in the 1-meter and 3-meter events, and senior Tessa Clark following Einfeldt for second place in the 3-meter.
The swimmers and divers will take a break until February 8, when BYU will host Utah.
