Utah’s Stina Colleou and Maddie Meisel collected two wins each, while Amanda Casillas and Jasmine Matkovic both took top honors in diving events, but the Boise State Broncos (1-0) edged the Utes (2-2) in women’s swimming and diving action by a score of 156.5-143.5 Wednesday evening at the Boise West YMCA.
Along with the four wins between Colleou, Casillas and Matkovic, Utah picked up four more individual wins on the day and nearly pulled away with the victory in the night’s final event, the 200-yard freestyle relay.
The Broncos led by a margin of 145.5-137.5 heading into the final race and then managed to seal the victory after taking first-place in the relay with a time of 1:33.49, while Utah’s team of Dorien Butter, Maddie Jamora, Rhianna Williams and Giuliana Gigliotti touched in second with a time of 1:34.11.
Boise State would tally 11 points in the event and Utah came away with six total points, which helped give the Broncos the 13-point win.
“I am proud of how hard we fought today,” said Utah head coach Joe Dykstra. “We went down early in the meet, really fought back over the back-half and nearly pulled it out on the last relay. Boise swam exceptionally well and we really struggled adapting to a very tough facility to get accustomed to.”
Colleou took first-place in both the breaststroke events, touching first in the 100 with a time of 1:04.54 and then taking top honors in the 200 event with a time of 2:17.65. Brianna Francis would finish behind her in the 200 breast with a time of 2:21.41.
Casillas helped Utah pick up its first win of the day as she took first-place in the three-meter event with a score of 270.83. Lauren Hall collected a pair of points for the Utes as she finished in fourth-place with a score of 264.98.
Matkovic would later give Utah a sweep in diving events after taking the top spot in the one-meter with a score of 264.07. It was Matkovic’s first individual win since taking first overall in both one-meter and three-meter events last season against Washington State.
“I'm proud of the diver’s performances today,” said Utah head diving coach Richard Marschner. We dived well considering the conditions. Jasmine had a great one-meter event after a tough go of things on three-meter and Amanda has been consistently good. Lauren also set personal bests on both boards."
Competing in her first 1000 freestyle event of the season, Meisel managed to take first-place with a time of 10:18.99 and she then took first in the 500 freestyle as well, touching first with a season-best time of 4:58.43.
Petra Soininen picked up an individual title in the 200 butterfly after touching in 2:04.39 and she finished second overall in the 200 butterfly with a time of 55.83.
Amanda Barrett recorded Utah’s final first-place finish with a victory in the 200 backstroke as she touched in a time of 2:02.34. Utah would actually finish the event in order as Megan Kawaguchi (2:04.63) and Hailey Pabst (2:06.43) followed Barrett for a one-two-three finish.
The Utes are now 2-2 overall on the season and will take a three-week break before returning to action when the team travels to Las Vegas, Nev., to take on UNLV and Arizona. The event will be held at Buchanan Natatorium on Nov. 1.
