LARAMIE, Wyo. (Sep. 27, 2019) – Wyoming Swimming and Diving held its annual Brown and Gold meet Friday night at Corbett pool. This year, the meet would be highly competitive however in the end the gold team would manage to pull away and earn the 314-264 victory and bragging rights for the season.
"This is a very fun meet for our team and they really brought the energy. They like competing against each other and what we saw out of our freshmen was really something pretty spectacular." head coach Dave Denniston said. "A lot of our younger athletes just stood up and raced and the other part was some of veterans rose to the challenge.
The gold team would get off to solid start by winning the fifth event of the night as Junior Katelyn Blattner would get things going by winning the 200 freestyle with a time 1:53.39 but she would be followed closely by the brown team as sophomore Lainee Jones would touch the wall second with a time of 1:53.96. Shortly after that the gold team would earn a one-two finish in the 100 backstroke as freshman Emily Giles and sophomore Molly Green would touch the wall with times of 58.68 and 1:01.01, respectively.
The brown team would answer back with a one-two finish on the men's side as seniors Tyler Klatt and Sean Calkins would take first and second in the men's 100 backstroke with times of 51.43 and 52.46, respectively. After the brown team won two events in a row, junior Mitchell Hovis would earn another victory for the gold team as he would take the victory in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 57.58.
After a back and forth couple of races, the gold team would solidify its lead by winning five straight events and it all started with a second win by Giles. She would cruise to a victory in the 200 backstroke clocking a final time of 2:08.00. In the next event, sophomore Miller Browne would make it a gold team sweep in the 200 backstroke as he won the men's side with a time of 1:55.15.
Sophomore Phoebe Browne won the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:25.78, while Hovis would follow that up by winning the 200 breaststroke on the men's side with a final time of 2:11.26. Blattner would wrap up the fifth event by finishing first in the women's 500 freestyle with a time of 5:06.71
On the boards, freshman Melissa Mirefuentes would have a solid night as she would take first in both the women's diving events. She started out by posting a score of 270.37 in the 3-meter event. Redshirt junior Karla Contreras and senior Abigail Zoromski would finish in second and third with scores of 264.75 and 227.77 respectively. In the 1-meter Mirafuentes would take first with a final score 276.30 while sophomore McKenna Houlihan would finish second with a tally of 245.40 and Contreras in third with a mark of 234.75.
On the men's side for diving, sophomore Brendan Byrnes would win both the 1 and 3-meter events with scores of 275.92 and 285.45. In the 3-meter, junior Elijah Chan would take second with a score of 258.82 and freshman Payton Lee would take third with a score of 222.52. Lee would take second in the 1-meter with a score of 266.77 and Chan finished third with a score of 262.42.
The Cowboys and Cowgirls will return to action on Saturday, Oct. 6 for the DU Relays. The meet is scheduled for 1 p.m. MT in Denver.
