GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. Two more school records fell on Day 2 of the 2025 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championship meet Wednesday at El Pomar Natatorium, and Western Colorado finished the day in fourth place overall with 243 points.

During the morning's preliminary session, it was Morgan Nielsen setting a new school record in the 1,000-yard freestyle. The evening's championship session saw two more records fall, the first in the 200 individual medley and the second in the final event of the night, the 200 medley relay.

Nielsen's lifetime-best time of 10 minutes, 22.95 seconds would end up as a seventh-place podium finish. Teammate Leah Wagner would go one place better, though, swimming to a Western record time of 2:09.31 to place sixth in the 200 IM.

In the last women's heat in the pool Wednesday night, the Mountaineer foursome of LynDea Turner, Trinity Caudle, Joanna Swiderska and Makenna Lambert teamed up for a fourth-place finish in the medley relay, setting a new record with a finishing time of 1:46.47.

It was a strong finals session for the Mountaineers, who moved up a spot into fourth place in the teams standings behind results in the pool and on the diving boards.

Along with Nielsen's seventh in the 1,000, Western added points with 17th place by AvaMarie Hopewell (10:51.08), a 19th place by Sophia Del Rosario (10:58.34), and Sidney-Ann Morris' 11:08.64 time for 21st place.

Wagner wasn't alone in adding points from the 200 IM. Turner posted a time of 2:12.27 in the consolation final to earn 13th place overall, and in the 'C' consolation final

Western's Trinity Caudle and Demi Blaylock contributed to the point total. Caudle, after posting a lifetime best in her prelims swim, bested that time in the 'C' final, touching in 2:13.73 for 22nd place, and Blaylock was 24th with a time of 2:16.75.

Madi Zach improved one spot from her seeding after prelims, taking 23rd overall after swimming to a time of 24.82 in the 'C' final of the 50 free.

Action moved over to the diving boards for the following event. Western advanced all three of its divers from the afternoon's preliminary 11-dive session on the 1-meter board, pushing Chloe Brown, Alexandra Wallis and Ashlynn Mixon into the night's finals.

Starting with their cumulative scores from the five voluntary dives from within the 11-dive prelims, each of the eight divers in the finals repeated their six optional dives from the prelims.

Brown would challenge at the top of the leaderboard throughout most of the finals and eventually finished in third place with 438.85 points. Wallis totaled 379.70 points for sixth place, and Mixon earned eighth place with 312.60 points.

That left the medley relay teams to step into the spotlight. In addition to the 'A' relay's school record, the 'B' relay of Amayah Warren, Wagner, Adessa Talbot and Ella Fries swam to a 14th place with a time of 1:52.24.

The Mountaineers sit in fourth place with 243 points, ahead of fifth-place Oklahoma Christian University's 210.5 points. Host Colorado Mesa University sits atop the standings with 555 points.

UP NEXT
Thursday morning's session will include the preliminary heats of the 100 butterfly, the 400 IM and the 200 free. The finals session will also include the timed final heats of the 400 medley relay.
 

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PRELIMS RECAP
After Wednesday morning's preliminaries session at the 2025 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championships, Western

Colorado will be sending five swimmers into the evening's finals session.

The women's 200-yard individual medley heats will see four of those five on the blocks.

Qualifying for the 'C' final – places 17-24 – were Demi Blaylock and Trinity Caudle. Blaylock posted a prelims time of 2 minutes, 16.77 seconds for the 24th fastest prelims time, while Caudle was 22nd fastest in 2:15.25.

The consolation final (9th-16th) will include Western's LynDea Turner, whose time of 2:12.85 was 16th after the preliminary heats.

The Mountaineers will cheer on Leah Wagner in the championship final (1st-8th). Wagner posted a time of 2:10.83 to qualify with the seventh fastest swim from the preliminary heats.

Earning a spot the 'C' final of the 50 freestyle was Madi Zach, whose time of 24.86 seconds qualified her for the evening with the 24th-fastest time.

Included in the morning preliminary heats were all but the fastest seeded heat of the 1,000 free.

Western had four swimmers in those morning timed final heats, and with only one heat remaining, all four are guaranteed to score in the top 24.

Morgan Nielsen posted the fastest time of all swimmers in the morning, achieving the NCAA championship's B standard with a time of 10:22.95, setting a school record in the process. Nielsen, who swam the event – as well as the 500 and 1,650 free's – at the 2024 NCAA Division II championship meet, broke the school record (10:26.69) that she had set at last year's RMAC championship.

With only eight swimmers still to swim in the evening session, Nielsen is guaranteed at least ninth place overall.

Also guaranteed point-scoring places in the event from Western are AvaMarie Hopewell, Sophia Del Rosario and Sydney-Ann Morris.

Hopewell (10:51.08) was ninth-fastest in the morning, Del Rosario (10:58.34) was 11th-fastest, and Morris (11:08.64) was 13th-fastest. Hopewell is guaranteed no worse than 17th place overall, Del Rosario no lower than 19th, and Morris no worse than 21st place.

Competing in between the morning prelims and evening finals are Western's three divers.

Chloe Brown, Alexandra Wallis and Ashlynn Mixon will be on the 1-meter board for the 11-dive prelims with the top 8 advancing into the championship session where they will compete with just their 6 voluntary dives.