ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico women’s swimming and diving team honored its five seniors competing in its final home meet of their career Saturday and all five came through with at least one top-four finish as the Lobos defeated Colorado State 160-121 and lost to Air Force 147-134 at Seidler Natatorium.
The seniors – Lindsey Englestead, Anna Lengyel, Emily McGill, Kaela McKee and Abigail Wheeler – combined for eight of the Lobos’ 13 top-three individual finishes and helped guide a pair of relays to second-place finishes
“I’m real happy with the quality of our racing today,” UNM coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker said. “… It was a fun day with the seniors. We were racing on behalf of them today. This is a tremendous senior class.”
McKee had a strong day as she won the 100 (56.67) and 200 (2:04.61) backstroke as well as helped the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams to second-place finishes.
“It was really, really exciting,” McKee said of competing at her final home meet. “It was good to swim with some really fast underclassmen. We’re excited going into the rest of this season. We still have conference, and hopefully NCAAs. This was a good turning point for us at the end of the semester.”
Another senior that shined Saturday was McGill as she won the 100 (1:04.60) and 200 (2:20.07) breaststroke, took second in the 200 individual medley (2:06.15) and swam the second leg of the 200 medley relay team that took second.
The other seniors played big parts in the Lobos’ successful Saturday as well with Wheeler taking third in the 100 (57.07) and 200 (2:07.52) butterfly and swimming a leg in the 200 medley relay, Lengyel taking second in the 200 butterfly (2:05.60) and Englestead taking fourth in the 100 (1:06.46) and 200 breaststroke (2:23.41).
In the diving portion, sophomore Allyson Concepcion took first place in both the 1-meter (265.70 – winning by 2.5 points) and 3-meter dive (270.20).
“I think it was really important to win so I could score a lot of points and help the seniors out,” Concepcion said. “Since this is their last (home) meet, I wanted to do everything I could to help the team out.”
Several other Lobos finished in the top three in events as well with Adriana Palomino taking second in the 500 (5:03.26) and the 1000 (10:19.63) freestyle, Konoha Shinada taking second in the 100 butterfly (56.86) and third in the 50 freestyle (23.81) and Carol De Groote Tavares taking third in the 100 backstroke (57.40).
The 200 medley relay team of McKee, McGill, Wheeler and Shinada took second place with a time of 1:45.18 while the 400 freestyle relay team of Shinada, McKee, Talia Passarelli and Palomino took second with a time of 3:31.71.
The Lobos will have more than a month off before competing at a meet hosted by San Diego State on Jan. 13.