Utah Swimming and Diving Notes

1/10/2005 12:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving

Jan. 10, 2005

THIS WEEK:

The University of Utah women's swimming and diving teams travel to Fort Collins, Colo., to compete against MWC rival Colorado State on Thursday Jan. 13. Utah then travels to Albuquerque, N.M., on Saturday Jan. 15, to take on the University of New Mexico Lobos. The Ute women are 4-0 overall and 2-0 MWC, with wins over San Diego, San Diego State, UNLV and Denver.

INDIANA INVITATIONAL REWIND:

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The University of Utah men's and women's swimming and diving teams both finished third at the 2004 Indiana Invitational. The women finished with 618.50 points, while the men tallied 779.50 points.

For the Utes, freshman Michelle Blair set a new Utah school record in the 200 fly at 2:02.42 to finish second in the event. Marta Stepanczuk finished second in the 1650 free with a time of 16:44.95, while sophomore Rachael Curci finished fifth with a17:02.72 mark. In the 100 free, Alison McInturff claimed second place with a time of 51.04, while Amy Barefield finished seventh in the event (52.62). Marissa Martin finished fourth in the 200 back with a time of 2:02.68, and Jamie Trapp (2:06.30) and Loren Sweny (2:09.24) finished seventh and eighth, respectively.

On the men's side, senior Evan Castro finished second in the 200 breast with a time of 2:04.00, while Nick Galen finished seventh with a 2:10.00 time. Cody Rempfer finished third in the 200 fly with a time of 1:48.65, and Andrew Cole claimed third place in the 200 back with a 1:50.63 time. Junior Jonathan Larsen swam a 44.94 in the 100 free to finish third.

"This was an awesome meet for us," said Head Coach Michael Litzinger. "We swam very well with some top-ranked teams in the nation. We wanted to put our team in a preliminary/final format to help prepare them for the Mountain West Championships, and this was a great opportunity for us."

TAMPA RELAYS REWIND:

TAMPA, Fla. - The University of Utah men's and women's swimming teams finished first in the afternoon session of the University of Tampa Relays. The men finished with a score of 132, with host school Tampa finishing second with 102 points and Truman State rounded out the field in third place with 86 points.

The women's team finished with 102 points, while Truman State finished in second with 98 points. Miami of Ohio finished third with 88 points and Tampa placed fourth with 78 points.

QUOTING HEAD COACH Michael Litzinger:

"The Colorado State and New Mexico meets will be a tough road trip for us. CSU is one of the best coached teams in the MWC and has always been a great meet for us. Utah has never won in Ft. Collins, and we are certainly looking to change that on Thursday. UNM is always ready to swim well at home and has some great athletes. Our goals have remained the same and we will be concentrating on building our momentum for performances at the end of the season and the MWC. Championship."