SAN ANTONIO, Texas – New Mexico wraps up the fourth and last day of the 2015 Swimming and Diving MW Championships with a final score of 180 points to take ninth place in this season’s conference standings.
SDSU takes the title for the conference championships after achieving a final team score of 704.5. The last time the Aztecs claimed the top spot was during the 2013 MW Championships where they earned 734 points.
Four days of rigorous competition and 21 events later resulted in the remaining final team rankings: Boise State for second place (679.5 points), Nevada for third place (554 points), Wyoming for fourth place (420 points), UNLV for fifth place (312.5 points), Air Force Academy for sixth place (281 points), San Jose State for seventh place (222 points), Fresno State for eighth place (187 points) and CSU for 10th place (172.5 points).
The Lobos began the final day with event 16—200-yard backstroke.
Caitlin Gardiner recorded a prelim time of 2:00.73 to put her in 15th place and a B-finals time of 2:01.73 for 14th place.
Amber Amr and Kaela McKee raced in the C-finals of the same event.
Amr had a 2:02.51 prelim time for 25th place and 2:03.23 finals time to move her up to 23rd place. McKee swam a prelim time of 2:02.46 and final time of 2:05.69 to put her in 24th place for both the preliminaries and finals round.
New Mexico moved on to the 100-yard freestyle where six other Lobos (Shayla King, Amelie Braul, April Chee, Fanni Pataki, Madison Burns and Anna D-Lilliestrom) represented in the preliminaries event but only one made to the final round.
Freshman Morgan Ginnis showed a 14th place prelim time of 50.59 and B-finals time of 50.46 for 15th place.
Next up was the 200-yard breaststroke.
Lindsey Englestead brought in the highest place for UNM in the event clocking in at 2:17.23 in the B-finals round for 10th. Kristin Walker accompanied Englestead in the B-finals and took 14th with a time of 2:17.51.
Emily McGill racked some more points for the Lobos in the same event as she finished with a C-finals time of 2:18.28 for 18th place.
New Mexico transitioned to the 200-yard butterfly where Anna Lengyel, Celine Bertrand and Abigail Wheeler occupied the lanes for the Lobos.
Lengyel touched the wall at 2:01.04 for seventh place in the A-finals. Bertrand came in at 2:06.72 for 16th place in the B-finals. Wheeler recorded a time of 2:03.20 for 17th place in the C-finals.
The team of Ginnis, King, Braul and Chee competed in the only relay of the day.
In the 400-yard freestyle relay Ginnis swam the first leg with a split of 50.87, King went second and raced a split of 51.35, Braul went after and recorded the fastest split of 50.53 and Chee finished with an anchoring time of 50.70 to bring the team’s time to 3:23.45 for ninth place.
Ginnis brought four days of conference competition to a close in the final event of the day where she went head to head with Wyoming’s junior swimmer Emily Ridout. Ginnis finished at 23.11 to take first place just a hair before her only opponent’s time of 23.11.
New Mexico’s swimming and diving program endured another challenging dual meet and conference season with both struggles and triumphs to contribute to the depth and advancement of the team.
However, the battles in the water don’t surrender yet.
Though the swimmers are done the divers will have a short relief from competition until the NCAA Diving Zones which are scheduled to begin in Colorado Springs, Colo. on March 9.