GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  The Mountaineer swim team embarked on its 2026-27 schedule with Friday's Intermountain Shootout hosted by Colorado Mesa University at the Mavericks' El Pomar Natatorium.

The two-day Shootout is scored as two separate meets, with different event schedules each day. This is Western's first appearance in the Shootout, which regularly includes a few NCAA Division I teams in addition to the DII hosts.

Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, and Utah Tech brought their DI teams to compete against CMU, Western, and Adams State University.

The first event brought Western's first points on Friday, as the 400-yard medley relay team of Anna Jorstad, Emma Linscombe, Jaylen Lembas and Tate Lanham scored and eighth-place finish in the event with a time of 4 minutes and 0.76 seconds.

In addition to the 'A' relay's points-placing finish, Sarah Krise led off the 'B' relay with a career-best time in the 100 backstroke, sending the relay quartet off with a new best time of 58.73 seconds.

Among Western's highest placing individual finishers was Adessa Talbot, who placed 12th in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:11.18.

Also recording a 12th-place finish was Maggie Hansel in the 1,000 freestyle. The freshman finished just ahead of Western's Morgan Nielsen in 13th place, the pair leading a foursome to the pads. Hansel touched in 10:52.51 to edge out Nielsen's 10:53.85, while Brionna Thomas (10:54.88) was 14th and Lily Rosh (10:57.02) was 15th.

Producing other top-16 times on Friday were Rosh and Emilie Tesseneer who placed 14th and 15th, respectively, in the 100 backstroke. Rosh hit the pad in 1:00.21 while Tesseneer was just behind in 1:00.23.

Jorstad contributed a 16th place in the 50 freestyle (24.51), and in the 100 breaststroke, Demi Blaylock (1:07.73) was 15th and Linscombe (1:08.34) was 16th, Blaylock's time just 4/10ths of a second off her collegiate best.

UP NEXT
The Mountaineers head into the second day of the Shootout on Saturday, with the event schedule starting at 10 a.m.