NM State swimmers off to strong start at WAC championships

HOUSTON – NM State got started on the right foot with a pair of podium finishes on day one of the Western Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. In the only two swim events of the evening, the 200-yard medley relay and 800 free relay, the Aggies turned in two of the fastest swims in program history.

With the solid relay finishes, the Aggies find themselves in fourth place with 71 points as a team heading into day two.
 
In the 200 medley relay, the squad of Maude Boily-Dufour, Skylar Welle, Rachel Ponte and Aimee Burton turned in a time of 1:40.11 to place second in the opening race of the meet. This time was also good for second-fastest in NM State history.
 
The Aggies followed their performance in the 200 medley relay with a second top-three finish as Lindsay Puhalski, Airam Oliva-Aun, Lauren Hemburrow and Neza Kocijan combined to finish third in the 800 free relay. Their time of 7:21.40 also put them into the Aggie history books as this ranks second in program history.
 
The Aggies also competed in the 1-meter dive where they were led by Italia Aranzabal who came away with a fourth-place finish in the consolation final after posting a score of 238.60.
 
"Today was a solid start with many great performances," said head coach Rick Pratt. "Our relays were both just off our school records with multiple lifetime best splits. There are lots of swims left tomorrow and it was great to get some of those first event jitters out of the way. The energy of our team is awesome, and we're excited for tomorrow."
 
The Aggies will back in the pool for day two of the WAC Championships as prelims get underway at 9:30 a.m. while finals kick off at approximately 5 p.m. Prelims can be found on wacdigitalnetwork.com and finals will be shown on ESPN+.
 
Fans can also follow along with the Aggies on Instagram (@nmstateswimdive), Twitter (@NMStateSwimandDive) and Facebook (NM State Swimming & Diving).