WESTERN COLORADO at ROCHESTER INVITATIONAL
Thu.-Sat., Dec. 4-6 | Rochester Recreation Center | Rochester, Minn.
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ROCHESTER, Minn. Western Colorado's swim and dive program will finish off the fall semester portion of its schedule with the three-day, prelims/finals Rochester Invitational hosted by St. Cloud (Minn.) State.
The Mountaineers will be competing against fellow NCAA Division II programs Minnesota State Moorhead and the host Huskies, as well as St. Ambrose University of the NAIA ranks.
Several NCAA DIII programs will be at the meet including Wis.-Eau Claire, Wis.-LaCrosse, St. Olaf, Carleton, and the College of St. Benedicts, as well as Iowa Central Community College.
The Invite holds preliminary heats each morning beginning at 8 a.m. MT, with the fastest 32 finishers from those prelims advancing to A, B, C and D finals that begin at 4 p.m. MT on Thursday and Friday, and at 3 p.m. MT on Saturday. Only the Championship 'A' final and the 'B' and 'C' consolation finals will score points, and only four swimmers from a team may advance from prelims to finals in each individual event.
The diving preliminaries are contested immediately following morning prelims. The diving prelims – on 3-meter board Thursday afternoon and 1-meter board Friday – will consist of the six optional dives, with then a cut to 16 divers, followed by the five voluntary dives. The top eight divers from the prelims will advance to the evening's finals sessions.
Western's
Alexandra Wallis will dive on both boards at the meet. Wallis competed at the 2023 and the 2025 NCAA DII Qualification Meet for nationals.
The Mountaineers will have a heavy presence in the distance events. In the opening individual event Western has three swimmers seeded within the top eight of the 500-yard freestyle and three more in the next eight.
Agnieszka Rudomina enters the event seeded fifth while
Brionna Thomas is seventh and
Morgan Nielsen is eighth.
Sophia Del Rosario (10th),
AvaMarie Hopewell (11th) and
Elizabeth Sagunsky (16th) also expect to advance from prelims into the finals heats.
On the final day, Western finds four swimmers seeded within the top eight of the 1,650 free – Nielsen (2nd), Thomas (3rd), Rudomina (5th),
Sidney-Ann Morris (7th) – with Hopewell (9th) and Del Rosario (12th) looking to move up into the top eight with their teammates.
Leah Wagner will try to make four event championship heats over the course of the meet. She enters the Invite seeded 5th in the 200 individual medley (IM), 6th in the 400 IM, 3rd in the 200 breaststroke, and 11th in the 100 breaststroke.
Another breaststroker,
Ella Fries, is seeded high in the 100 (3rd) and 200 (4th), and will look to move up in the 400 IM from her 15th seed time.
Thomas, seeded within the top eight in both the 500 and 1,650, heads into the 200 free prelims with the No. 6 seed.
Others with top-eight seeds include:
Relay events will be swim as timed finals in the evening sessions each evening, and scheduled as:
- Thursday – 200 medley relay and 800 freestyle relay
- Friday – 200 freestyle relay and 400 medley relay
- Saturday – 400 freestyle relay
Last year's Invitational's top two teams, Minn. State Mankato and Augustana (S.D.) University, will not be attending, leaving host St. Cloud as the next highest finisher from the 2024 Invite as the top returning team in the women's team scores.
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