GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  The second day of the five-day Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference 2023 Swimming & Diving Championship concluded Wednesday night and Western Colorado sits in fourth place with 112 points.

Host and reigning champion Colorado Mesa University leads the meet with 334 points, followed by Colorado School of Mines (182) in second and Oklahoma Christian University (159) in third place.

Wednesday's evening session included championship and consolation heat finals in the 1,000-yard freestyle, the 200 individual medley, the 50 free, and the 200 medley relay. The Mountaineers scored points in all four events and set a new team record in one.

The 1,000 started off the night with the fastest eight seeds going off the blocks after the remaining seeds completed their timed final swims at the end of the morning's preliminary session.

When all the times were thrown back together, Western's Jordan Maruska had paced a quartet of Mountaineers within the 16 scoring places, finishing 11th overall in a time of 10 minutes, 57.99.

AvaMarie Hopewell, swimming in the night's top-eight heat, posted a time of 10:58.43 for a 12th-place finish, followed by Lauren Linneman (11:10.94) in 13th and Sidney-Ann Morris (11:34.56) in 16th with their times from the early session.

The next event grouped Western's LynDea Turner, Tayla Liddle and Leah Wagner together in the consolation heat of the 200 IM.

Liddle pushed into the lead after the backstroke leg, followed next by Turner who put together the fastest backstroke split, 31.76 seconds, of the heat. Wagner was in seventh after the opening 100 but raced into contention with the second-fastest breaststroke split (38.27).

Mesa's Maddi Moran inched back to the head of the pack after the breaststroke, leading Liddle by 1.1 seconds and Turner by 0.95 seconds. But Liddle chopped into the deficit with a freestyle split of 29.90 – the only sub-30 split in the field – to finish in a time of 2:09.80, 23/100ths of a second behind Moran, though, at the pads.

Liddle earned a 10th place with her swim, breaking a school record (2:10.34) that was set at the 2018 RMAC championship by Jordyn Richey. Turner's time of 2:11.63 was 12th overall and Wagner's 2:13.15 was 13th.

The marquis sprint event was next, and again Western had a trio of swimmers in the consolation heat, which, in the morning was separated fastest to slowest by just .19 seconds.

Addison O'Donnell bettered her prelims time by a hair, finishing in 13th overall with a time of 24.54. Makenna Lambert, 14th overall, stayed even with her prelims time, posting a consols heat time of 24.64, while Courtney Coplan – who had tied for 16th place after prelims and won a swim-off to advance to the consols – fought through the wash in the outside lane for a 16th-place time of 25.12.

The concluding event of the session put Western's 'B' and 'A' foursomes in the water for the consolation and championship heats, respectively, of the 200 medley relay.

In the consols, the 'B' relay moved into third place after Wagner's breaststroke leg and Anna Maurello's butterfly leg, but Oklahoma Christian's freestyle leg was just fast enough to inch ahead of Western's Emma Smith at the pads. The 'B' squad finished in 1:50.69 to take 12th place overall.

Coplan led off the 'A' relay in the championship heat, finishing her backstroke leg with a split of 26.54 that slotted Western in second. Though Trinity Caudle fought to hold onto that spot in the breaststroke led, the Mountaineers slipped to fourth heading into the butterfly leg.

Hopewell cemented Western's place with her fly leg, and Taylor Grebe finished off the fourth-place finish with a 24.68 split in the freestyle.

NEXT UP
The Mountaineers will have an edge on OCU in the women's 1-meter diving, making up some points in the event to close the gap with the Eagles. Western also hopes to claim points from the 100 butterfly, 400 IM and 200 free, as well as the evening session's closing event, the 400 medley relay.
 

PRELIMS RECAP
The second day of the 2023 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championship went off the blocks Wednesday morning, and Western Colorado finished the preliminaries session with seven swimmers who will return in the evening for either the championship (fastest 8) or consolation final (places 9-16).

In the points race – Western enters the day in third place, four points behind Oklahoma Christian (OCU) and eight points ahead of Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and Nebraska-Kearney (UNK) – the number of advancements from prelims into the championship final or the consolation final is a key factor when looking each day at potential changes on the leaderboard.

200-yard Individual Medley

• The Mountaineers put three swimmers into the consolation final, led by LynDea Turner who enters the night seeded 10th after a prelims swim of 2 minutes, 12.62 seconds.
• Joining Turner in the consols will be Leah Wagner (12th, 2:12.86) and Tayla Liddle (13th, 2:13.80).
• Mines will have three swimmers at night, all in the championship final, while OCU has one in the championship heat and two that will battle with Western's swimmers in the consols. Nebraska-Kearney was shut out of the evening heats.

50 Freestyle

• Again, Western will have three swimmers in the consolation heat. Addison O'Donnell, with a time of 24.59 seconds, posted the 11th fastest prelims time, with Makenna Lambert (24.61) 13th and Courtney Coplan (24.72) 16th. Coplan tied another swimmer, from Mines, for the final consolation heat spot and participated in a swim-off for that last spot, winning the race with a time of 24.36 to earn her consols place.
• Mines will have one swimmer in the championship heat and one in the consols, OCU has one in the championship heat and two in the consols, and UNK was blanked again from the event.
• Always a nail-biting close race, the difference between the morning's ninth fastest time and Coplan's original 16th fastest swim was just 19/100ths of a second. Western's Taylor Grebe narrowly missed out on advancing into the night session, 8/100ths of a second behind Coplan after hitting the prelims pad in a time of 24.80.

1,000 Freestyle

• The event is a timed final event, the fastest eight seeds placed into the finals session with all other entrants swimming in the prelims session. All times will be put together after the night session to determine first through 16th place.
• Western's AvaMarie Hopewell is one of the nighttime swimmers, seeded with the seventh place time of 10:42.77.
• The prelims session included the Mountaineers' Jordan Maruska, Lauren Linneman, Sidney-Ann Morris and Carolyn Goodwin. Maruska swam to a time of 10:57.99, Linneman touched in 11:10.94, Morris clocked an 11:34.56, and Goodwin finished in 12:44.21.
• Of Western's prelims swimmers, Maruska's and Linneman's times currently have the pair situated within the top 16, with Morris currently sitting in 17th.
• Mines has three seeded within the top eight swimming at night, OCU has one but adds two prelims times that are within the top 16. Nebraska-Kearney's top time is currently seeded 18th.