GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  The evening session on the penultimate night of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference 2023 Swimming & Diving Championship went swimmingly well for Western Colorado as it put a stranglehold on fourth place in the team standings and kept within striking distance of the third-place team, Oklahoma Christian University (OCU).

The Mountaineers had pushed 11 swimmers from the morning's preliminary heats into the nighttime's championship or consolation finals, the highest number to advance over the first four days of the meet at Colorado Mesa University's El Pomar Natatorium.

Kicking off the night session was the 500-yad freestyle, an event that had a pair of Mountaineers behind the blocks of the consolation final.

Bookending the field swimming in the outside lanes were Jordan Maruska and AvaMarie Hopewell, entering the heat as the final two seeds.

Maruska would leap up two spots at the final touch, improving to 14th place with a season-best final time of 5 minutes, 15.57 seconds, improving her prelims time by three seconds. She trailed the eventual 15th-place swimmer at the 450 mark but finished in a final sprint of 30.81 for the last 50 to inch in front by 0.16 seconds.

Hopewell – slated to swim in another consolation final later in the night – finished 16th in the 500 with a time of 5:18.75.

The 100 backstroke followed and included a trio of Mountaineers, including Courtney Coplan in the championship final. Before she leaped into the water for that heat, teammates LynDea Turner and Afton Page preceded her in the consols.

Turner would touch in 59.44 seconds to earn 13th place overall, and Page would go a 1:00.00 to finish 16th.

Coplan entered the championship heat with the fifth fastest time from the prelims but trimmed nearly a second off that swim to finish fourth in a collegiate-best time of 56.64.

The next event also included one championship finalist and two in the consols. All three would produce season-best swims, beginning with Leah Wagner and Trinity Caudle in the B-final.

Wagner cut a half second off her prelims time and moved up one spot in the final standings to finish 10th in a time of 1:06.77, while Caudle's season best of 1:07.34 earned her a 12th place finish.

Addison O'Donnell went next in the championship final, finishing seventh in a season best 1:05.10.

Though the 200 butterfly had no Mountaineers in the championship heat, Hopewell along with Miranda Noonan and Anna Maurello scored important points for Western in the consolation heat.

Hopewell, in her second swim of the night, went out in a conservative 1:04.59 to pass through the 100 mark in third place. Her third 50 (35.21), though, was the fastest of anyone in the heat as she moved up to second, then passed the leading swimmer on the final 25 to win the consolation final and earn ninth place with a season best 2:16.37.

Noonan had already posted a season best time in the prelims, then bettered that swim in taking 12th with a time of 2:18.89. Maurello, too, had put together a season best in the prelims (2:18.16) but fell just shy of that time in the consols, finishing 13th with a clocking of 2:19.52.

The final event of the night was the 200 free relay, with the Mountaineers' 'B' entry in the consolation final and the 'A' foursome in the championship heat.

Tayla Liddle's lead-off 50 for the B's, a 25.55, was a collegiate best time in the sprint. Wagner followed with a 25-flat, then Emma Smith added a 25.48 before Bella Gamez closed out the relay with a 24.91 anchor that had the 'B' entry fourth in the heat and 12th overall with a final time of 1:40.94.

Coplan led off the 'A' relay with a season best 24.80, with Turner going second and producing a 24.85 split. Taylor Grebe – who finished eighth in the 1-meter diving event Thursday – was third and produced a 24.63 split, handing off to Makenna Lambert as the anchor. Lambert blazed through her 50 in a split of 23.96 to finish off the relay in fifth place with a time of 1:38.24.

The Mountaineers had entered the day two points shy of OCU in the team standings but will head into the fifth and final day of the meet trailing the Eagles by 45 points. However, Western had been behind OCU by 47 points after Day 2 and made up all but two points of that deficit on the third day.

Coincidentally, the two teams tied for third place at the 2022 RMAC championships.

PRELIMS RECAP
The penultimate day of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference 2023 Swimming & Diving Championship opened Friday morning with preliminary heats in which 11 Western Colorado swimmers earned advancement into the evening's finals session.

Courtney Coplan and Addison O'Donnell raced to slots in championship heats while nine others will swim in consolation finals.

500-yard Freestyle

• AvaMarie Hopewell and Jordan Maruska grabbed the final two seeds in the consolation heat.
• Hopewell posted a time of 5 minutes, 16.91 seconds, the 15th-fastest prelims swim, while Maruska was 16th in a time of 5:18.35.
• The Mountaineer duo edged out teammate Makenna Lambert (5:20.50) who was 17th and one spot shy of returning for the evening heat.

100 Backstroke

• Coplan earned the first championship final spot for Western Friday, posting a prelims time of 57.55 seconds to head into the night's session as the No. 5 seed in the event.
• Prior to that championship final will be the consolation heat, with LynDea Turner and Afton Page getting the opportunity to improve from their prelims finishes and place as high as ninth.
• Turner heads into the consols seeded 12th after touching in 59.14 in the morning, and Page is 15th after a prelims time of 59.72.
• Like in the 500, a Mountaineer fell one spot shy of the consolation final as Tayla Liddle's 1:00.36 was 12/100ths of a second behind the 16th and last qualifier for that consols heat.

100 Breaststroke

• O'Donnell will race in the championship heat of the event after swimming to a prelims time of 1:05.05. She will be seeded sixth in the final.
• Both Leah Wagner and Trinity Caudle will swim in the consolation final. Wagner was 11th in the morning with a time of 1:07.29 with Caudle right behind in 12th after touching in 1:07.41.

200 Butterfly

• The grueling 200 fly consolation final will include a trio of Western swimmers as Hopewell adds a second swim in the night, joining teammates Anna Maurello and Miranda Noonan in the heat.
• Maurello was 10th fastest in the morning in a time of 2:18.16, edging out Noonan's 11th place time of 2:19.81.
• Hopewell recovered well from her 500 free prelims and earned the 14th seed in the fly, registering a time of 2:23.02 to double-dip in the night session.