LAS VEGAS, Nev. (Feb. 20, 2021) – For the third time this week, a title was captured for the Wyoming swimming and diving team. Sophomore Melissa Mirafuentes defended and repeated as a champion in the platform to close out the 2021 Mountain West Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday.
 
For her efforts over the week, she was also named the MW Championship Diver of the Meet for the second straight year. Mirafuentes was strong through her first five dives in the preliminaries. She posted a total of 263.80, which was almost 30 points better than the second and third place spots. In the finals, Mirafuentes recorded a season-best score of 280.50 to take home the title.
 
Wyoming finished in fourth with 965 points in the competition. UNLV pulled ahead to win the championship with 1,349 points followed by Nevada with 1,340. They both beat out the two time defending champion San Diego State who placed third with a total score of 1,309 points.
 
"Katelyn (Blattner) score the most points of any athlete at the meet after earning silver in the 200 backstroke. She is truly a stealer leader and phenomenal athlete," head coach Dave Denniston said. "There were some other great swims today starting with Laelle Brovold who dropped nine second in the 200 fly. It was followed up with Sage (Morton) placing third in the 1650 free with a race that she ran down several swimmers at the end. We were thrilled with Melissa winning MW Diver of the Meet. We are grateful to the MW and all of the teams for pulling off this meet."
 
Junior McKenna Houlihan would place 12^th with a score of 193.05 followed by senior Abigail Zoromski with a mark of 192.60 to place 12^th and 13^th respectively. Houlihan followed that up with a season-best score of 208.85, while Zoromski posted a six dive mark of 211.85. Sophomore Makena Sanger had a season-best score of 157.70.
 
"It was a great weekend all the way around. Before the competition, I gathered all of the scores of every diver who might have been in the competition and created projections based on high scores and average scores. Every single one of our ladies met or beat that projection," head diving coach Ted Everett said. "I'm really happy for all of them. I'm so pleased for Melissa who was so consistently good all year and is now reaching her stride. She's only seven opportunities on the platform and increased her score every time. The best thing is that even she hasn't had a competition where she hit all five dives. She should be pleased and take a moment to enjoy this, but I think her best is yet to come."
 
In the first swimming event of the day, senior Katelyn Blattner, who is coming off titles in the 200 and 500 freestyle, tied for second in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:58.76. She nearly missed out on her third title with a second place time of 1:56.89 in the finals. Sophomore Emily Giles posted a season-best time of 2:02.06 while junior Andrea Niemann finished with a time of 2:07.85.
 
The top finisher if the 100 freestyle was junior Sani Carsrud. She went 51.32 to place 14^th. Junior Lainee Jones went 52.10 followed by freshman Kali Franckowiak with her time of 52.44 to reach the C Final. Carsrud went 51.85 in the B Final while Jones posted a time of 51.99 and Franckowiak turning in a time of 52.42.
 
Freshman Isabel Rich went two seconds faster than her season-best in the 200 breaststroke prelims with a time of 2:19.65. She was followed by senior Rylie Pilon with a time of 2:20.24. The pair went 2:20.40 and 2:20.11 in the B Final. 
 
Senior Hannah Mclean-Leonard placed fifth in the 200 butterfly to reach the A Final in a time of 2:02.42, which was almost two seconds better than her season-best. She would move up a spot to fourth for a time of 2:00.98 in the finals. Sophomore Emma Mehl also improved her time with a mark of 2:07.76, while junior Erin Eccleston went 2:11.33. Freshman Laelle Brovold went a career-best time of 2:00.98.
 
Freshman Sage Morton finished with a strong performance in the 1650 free with a career-best performance time of 16:53.65. She knocked off almost 23 seconds off her previous best to finish third. Sophomore Roxanna Ramirez went 17:17.36 for a ninth place spot followed by freshman Britt Nichols who touched the wall in 17:18.12.
 
In the final event of the day, the team of Blattner, Carsrud, Jones and Mclean-Leonard went 3:26.02 in the 400 freestyle.
 
Up next for the Mirafuentes will be in the NCAA Zone "E" Championships, Monday-Wednesday, March 8-10, in Flagstaff, Ariz. Several members of the swimming team will be headed to the CSCAA Nationals in Elkhart, Ind., which is set to take place Thursday-Saturday, March 11-13. The men's swimming and diving teams will return to the pool this week to compete at the 2021 Western Athletic Championship. The four-day meet is scheduled to begin on Wednesday at 7 p.m. MT with the 200 medley relay at the Buchanan Natatorium in Las Vegas for swimming. The divers will be in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Thursday, Feb. 25, at the Aquatic Center.