From the University of Wyoming
Four Wyoming divers will compete at the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships hosted by University of Utah at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash.. The competition is set to begin on Monday with the Cowgirls set to compete in the 1-meter event while Byrnes will start off his Zone championship by competing in the 3-meter event. Beginning Thursday, 18 members from the Cowboy and Cowgirl swimming teams will participate in the CSCAA National Invitational Championship at the Busbey Natatorium in Cleveland, Ohio. Events will get underway on Thursday beginning at 8:00 a.m. MT with individuals competing in the 50 butterfly, breaststroke, freestyle and backstroke, 500 freestyle and 200 IM plus the 400 medley relay.
Redshirt junior Karla Contreras and freshman Melissa Mirafuentes will represent the Cowgirls in the 1 and 3-meter plus the platform, while sophomore McKenna Houlihan will participate in the 3-meter. On the men’s side, sophomore Brendan Byrnes will be performing in the 1-meter and platform for the first time in his career.
Mirafuentes is coming off a stellar performance at the 2020 MW Championship. She would capture the platform event and eclipsed her own and the program record with a combined score of 348.80 through five dives during the preliminaries. In the 3-meter finals, she posted another career and school best mark with a score of 378.00 to finish second. It broke her previous record that she set two weeks ago at Air Force of 365.65. Mirafuentes won the consolation final in the 1-meter with a score of 314.55. For her efforts, she was also named the MW Championship Diver of the Meet.
Contreras placed second during the morning session with a score of 288.50 in the platform. She had a solid performance and placed second in the finals with a season-best score of 302.80. In the 3-meter, she was fourth with a season-best score of 349.80. In the prelims of the 1-meter, she posted the top mark for the Cowgirls with a score of 274.85 to place seventh. Contreras followed that up with a 296.65 mark and another seventh place finish in the finals.
In the platform, Houlihan placed 18th behind with a career-high 213.35. She was 13th (283.15) in the 3-meter and would finish eighth in the consolation final with a score of 277.65. Houlihan was right out of the top 16 and placed 20th with a score of 236.90 in the 1-meter.
In the 3-meter diving preliminaries, Byrnes posted the top mark for the Cowboys with a score of 290.90 to place eighth to move into the finals. He followed that up with a 305.10 mark and a third place finish in the finals. He would also move on to the finals with a mark of 259.20 to place eighth in the 1-meter and placed fifth with a score of 264.00. In the 1-meter, he was sixth with a mark of 263.35. In the finals, Byrnes was sixth a score of 261.00
“I am really excited for the challenge posed by the zone meet,” head diving coach Ted Everett said. “This is the most pressure packed competition of the year with a trip to the NCAA championships on the line. I feel that we are bringing some strong momentum from the conference championships with us. We have been fortunate to have competed against everyone that is going to be at the meet during the season and have done well against them. I am hoping that we will be able to stay within ourselves and just dive like we have been. If we do, we should be happy with the results.”
To qualify for the NIC, individuals and relay may qualify for the CSCAA National Invitational Championship by winning their respective events (at) at a collegiate conference championship. In addition, any individual or relay team who equals or surpasses the CSCAA ‘A’ standard during the qualifying period shall be eligible to compete.
“We are looking forward to going to Cleveland State for the CSCAA Championship,” head coach Dave Denniston said. “Our best swimmers are going to race on a national stage and compete in some events they don’t normally race. We will actually have scores from zones diving added to the score, so we are pulling for the divers this week. The meet will end with a 50 meter time trial so a few might be able to pick up Olympic Trials cuts.”
Among the line-up competing are Wyoming’s two conference champions in juniors Katelyn Blattner and Brayden Love. Blattner captured her first Mountain West title of her career in the 500 freestyle on the second day at the 2020 MW Championships.
In the process, she eclipsed her own personal best and the school record time for the second time this season. She followed that up with her second title in the 200 freestyle. Blattner is also the first Cowgirl to win two events in the same meet since Lesley Young in the 100 and 200 breaststroke during the 2011 Championships. Blattner followed up her record breaking performance with a time of 1:48.37 in the preliminaries to place third. In the finals, she and Andressa Cholodovskis Lima of Nevada went down to the wire with the duo touching the wall at the same time, 1:47.35. It’s a career best for Blattner and second best in school history. Fellow junior Hannah Mclean-Leonard eclipsed her own personal-best and the school record in the 100 butterfly which she accomplished in last year’s MW Championships. Mclean-Leonard would waste no time getting things going for Wyoming as she would set the school mark which she currently held.
With a time of 52.70, she broke the record time of 52.96, which was set on Feb. 22, 2019. Mclean-Leonard placed second in the race and finish in the runner-up spot in the final with a time of 52.92.
Love claimed his first career Western Athletic title in the 200 butterfly on the final day of the 2020 Swimming and Diving Championship. He is the first Cowboy since George Eglesfield in 2014 to win a title in the event. He also eclipsed his previous career-best and school record that he set this season.
Love also eclipsed his own personal best and the school record in the 100 butterfly on Friday at the 2020 WAC Swimming and Diving Championships. Love placed second in the 100 fly after posting a career and school best time of 47.06. In the 200 medley relay, the team of senior Tyler Klatt, sophomore Grant Sloan, Love and senior PJ Musser posted a school best mark in a time of 1:27.01.
It was previously held by the team of Wad Nelson, Gabe Rooker, Eglesfield and Bryce Carter who had a time of 1:27.24 set in 2016.
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