Lobos Looking for High Note at MW Championships
HOUSTON, Texas – The Mountain West championships haven’t gone UNM’s way in the past few years, but this is 2024, and the much-improved Lobos swimming & diving team will be looking to make a statement. That statement isn’t a “we are going to win the whole thing” type of statement, but it is a statement that “we are back and we are here to win events and score points.” For the Lobos under a first-year coaching staff, it’s been that climb back to respectability that has been showcased by positive sign after positive sign throughout the 2023-24 season, one that had just one real goal – re-establish a program and a culture.
That goal certainly has been met.
The 2024 Mountain West Swimming and Diving Championships begin Wednesday, as the Lobos are one of nine MW teams competing for the Conference crown and individual event titles. The four-day event opens Wednesday, Feb. 21, and wraps up Saturday, Feb. 24. For the second consecutive year the championships will take place at the CRCWC Natatorium on the University of Houston’s campus.
The Lobos will have one of the smaller squads at the championships with 10 swimmers and four divers competing.
For UNM, the 2024 Championships should be a series of small steps. A year ago, UNM’s individuals totaled just 116 points, and the five relay squads just 200. The Lobos had just two A-Finals, both by Ola Tomaszek in the 100 and 200-yard butterflies. This year, the Lobos enter the championships with good momentum after a season in which Alice English was named the Mountain West Diver of the Week, the first for a Lobo diver in six years. English has six event wins on the season and fellow diver Kristen Hepfer has five.
It’s also a season in which at the UNLV Invitational, Jordan Foster was the overall point scorer in the meet, which featured several Mountain West teams. Katy McCarter (five), Jordan Foster (four), Maya Clise (two), Tahlia Micallef (one), and Layni Andrle (one) all have event wins, with Foster’s four coming in four different events. Will it translate against a few MW programs such as San Diego State, UNLV, Nevada, and Wyoming, programs that are perennially battling for the Mountain West title? It might not translate into championships, but it should translate into a few A and B-Final appearances and points.
For a program that missed an entire season from COVID and has scuffled to bounce back, it’s been a 2023-24 season of good moments for head coach Naya Higashijima and her staff (asst. swim coach Phoebe Campbell and diving coach Logan Andrews). The Lobos haven’t been able to put it all together in the same meet, which is now the goal on the grand Mountian West Championship stage. The big positive is although the team loses seven seniors, several promising newcomers have been added to the program for 2024-25, and such much talent is slated to return. Couple that with a season of good vibes and increased competition, and the Lobos should be a fun watch in the championships.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- The Championships will stream live on the Mountain West Network. Supporters can watch online at golobos.com/watch or on their phones and connected TVs with the all-new Mountain West app. Watch every moment of the Swimming and Diving Championships LIVE on TV through Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV , or Roku. Mobile applications are available through the iOS App Store and Google Play. Visit TheMW.com/app for more information.
- Live scoring of the 2024 Mountain West Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships will be available on the official Mountain West Swimming and Diving Championships page.
- A full schedule of events can be found here: MW Championship Schedule
- Heat sheets, ticket information and all things MW Swimming and Diving Championships can be found on the MW Championships Central page.