The BYU women’s swimming and diving team had a strong performance against UNLV, winning 186-114, while the men fell in a 176-118 loss on Friday.
“I thought our girls swam really well tonight and dominated every race they won,” BYU coach Tim Powers said. “Our sprinters also did well, but UNLV had better legs and came off the walls fast and finished stronger than we did.”
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Alia Welsh and Andrea Grant later took first and second in the 200-yard free in times of 1:54.76 and 1:55.29, respectively. Campbell and Candice Smith also took the the top two times of 56.75 and 57.60 in the 100-yard backstroke event.
“We have a strong group of girls in every event and we do really well together as a team,” Toolson said. “We’ve been working on the smaller technical things in training and that’s what made our swimming that much better.”
Welch and Toolson stood out as the team’s top competitors when they placed first in two more events. Welch came in first with her final time of 2:06.89 in the 200-yard butterfly and 56.47 in the 100-yard butterfly. Toolson took the 50 and 100-yard free with times of 23.81 and 52.38.
The women’s 400-yard free relay team of Campbell, Welch, Smith and Toolson ended the night on a high note by taking the win with their time of 3:30.98. The men’s team of Stott Bushnell, Dani Bates, Ryan Krause and Garret Beaman finished closely behind UNLV with a time of 3:04.65.
“It was good to face some tough competition and be able to see what we need to work on now to be ready when we see them again at conference championships,” Powers said.
Half of BYU’s diving team stayed in Provo to compete against UNLV, while the other half competed at the Trojan Invite in Los Angeles over the weekend.
At the invite, Dayna Christensen took eighth place with a score of 233.10 in the women’s 3-meter diving event, while Brandon Watson took fourth place with his score of 311.15 in 1-meter.
“I think we dove pretty well this weekend,” coach Keith Russell said. “We didn’t do as good as we could have and we could have placed a bit higher, but all in all I feel that it was a successful weekend.”
Mikenna Cloward took first at home with a score of 267.75 in the 1-meter, and Syrena Miskin grabbed a second place score of 270.75 in the 3-meter. Travis Day placed first in both the 1-meter and 3-meter with 322.50 and 337.80, respectively.
“It’s good to see some harder competition and see where we’re at,” Russell said.
The teams next travel to the Arena Invitational in California on Nov. 17-18.
