Morgan Paul dives at the Utah Diving Invitaional. Paul placed second in women's 3-meter dive. (BYU Photo)
The BYU swim team went to Austin, Texas, Nov. 29- Dec. 2 to compete in the Texas Invite while the dive team competed in the Utah Diving Invitational at the University of Utah over the weekend.
During the final day of the Texas Invite, senior Shawn Western dropped 10 seconds off his fastest time in the men’s 1650-yard freestyle.
“We had a great finish to the meet today,” said coach John Brooks. “The highlights were Shawn Western’s mile, the relays, along with all those who swam in the finals. This has been a challenging year and this meet had some ups and downs. I am proud of those who continue to have positive attitudes.”
The relay to which Brooks was referring was swum by Payton Sorenson, Preston Jenkins, Sherif Aboumandour and Kunmi Ogunfeibo. The team raced in men's 400-yard freestyle relay and placed 12th.
Sorenson raced on his own in the men's 100-yard freestyle preliminaries. He tied for ninth with Olympian Townley Haas and later competed in the B Finals, coming in eighth place.
Jenkins placed 15th in the preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke and eighth in the B Finals, which consists of swimmers with the ninth-16th best times, while Junior Ogunfeibo also qualified and placed sixth in the D Finals, which consists of swimmers with the 25th-32nd best times.
Haley Bertoldo of the women's swim team dropped eight seconds off her fastest time in the women's 200-yard backstroke, which qualified her for finals.
She placed fifth in the D Finals and took two more seconds off her fastest time.
Emma Richards Lythgoe also competed in the finals for the same event and placed sixth in the D Finals.
Alexa Walters and Taylor Ballard both qualified for finals in the 200-yard breaststroke; Ballard finished in fourth and Walters in eighth in the D Finals.
As for the dive team in Salt Lake City, Nathan Gonzalez took second place in the men's 1-meter at the Utah Diving Invitational while Morgan Paul also finished in second in the women's 3-meter.
Elizabeth Holmes place third in the women's 3-meter.
On the first day of the competition, Gonzalez finished in fourth in the men's 3-meter and Morgan Cooper placed sixth. Bryce Farabee wasn't far behind in eighth place.
The Cougars won't return to competition until Jan. 13 when they will compete in a meet at Grand Canyon University.
However, BYU will be traveling to Puerto Rico to participate in training over winter break.