LARAMIE, Wyo. (Oct. 24, 2019) – The Wyoming men's and women's swimming squads will return to the pool on Friday against the Colorado School of Mines. The meet will consist of swimming events only and is set to start at 4 p.m. MT at the CSM Natatorium in Golden, Colo.
 
The Cowboys and Cowgirls are both coming off of their first conference win of the season after both teams took down Air Force last Friday.
 
"On the women's side, this meet gives a lot of our younger athletes an opportunity to race again, have several swimmer compete in different events and be a little more towards the front of races," head coach Dave Denniston said. "On the men's side, any time we get a chance to have a men's meet it's valuable."
 
The Cowgirls beat Air Force 174-126 behind a very strong team performance including two events where the Cowgirls recorded 1-2-3 finishes. The first of those events were the 500 freestyle in which it was junior Katelyn Blattner finished first with a time of 5:08.63 followed by senior Daniela Luna Rocha who touched the wall in 5:08.99. Sophomore Maggie Clerkin came in third with a time of 5:20.22. The other event the Cowgirls would sweep during the meet would be the 200 IM. Freshmen Emily Giles finished first, sophomore Andrea Niemann placed second and junior Tanja Milanovic touched the wall in third to complete the sweep.

On the men's side, the meet would be much closer as the Cowboys got the first dual win of the season 159-141. The Cowboys would be led by a strong performance from junior Mitchell Hovis.  He would sweep the breaststroke events starting with a win in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 55.72. In the 200 breaststroke, Hovis recorded a time of 2:02.49 for his second first place finish of the meet.

The Orediggers will be a familiar foe for the Cowboys and Cowgirls as they have met several times over the last couple of seasons. They have already faced off at the DU Relays where UW finished second on both the men's and women's side. CSM placed third on both sides. Last season, the men's programs faced off in Laramie and the Cowboys came away with a dominant 163-96 victory.

For CSM, the men's and women's squads have competed twice during the fall. Both squads faced off in a dual against Truman State in which the men won 132-72 while the women's squad lost 115-90. The two teams have also competed at the Big Cat Relays where each finished second, placing ahead of host school Colorado College and finishing behind Truman State.

After the trip to Golden, the Cowgirls will stay very busy as they travel to Las Cruces to face New Mexico State on Saturday, Nov. 2 before returning to Laramie to host Washington State on Friday, Nov.8 and Colorado State on Saturday, Nov.9. The Cowboys will return to action Friday, Nov. 15 for the Corbett Invite.