The Cougars earned a combined twelve top-10 finishes in competition this weekend.The swimmers earned eight in Las Vegas at the UNLV Invite and the divers earned four in Arizona at the Wildcat Diving Invite.

Diving

"I felt we could have done better but we did a good job and really learned a lot," head diving coach Keith Russell said. "I think that now we have a chance to make some big improvements."

On Friday, junior Matt Hopper represented the Cougars in the men's 1-meter, taking fourth place with a score of 291.55. The top-three placers in the event represented Arizona (first and third) and USC (second).

Nicholas Suder dove a 337.35 to take fourth place in the men's 3-meter. At this competition, Suder completed a new dive that Russell believes is a big move and great improvement for the team. Teammate Bryce Farabee followed close behind, grabbing sixth place in the same event with a score of 320.50. Representing the BYU women's team, senior Raleigh Williams Taylor placed in the top 10 in the women's 1-meter.

Swimming

The women’s swimmers placed seventh in the invitational with 200 points while the men took sixth with 259 points. Cal was victorious among the women’s teams and Stanford for the men’s.

On Friday Stott Bushnell earned the first top-10 finish for BYU in the men’s 200 free, touching the wall in 1:41.27.  

The team of Angela Bennion, Jessica Ampuero, Allison McCormick and Valerie McMullan took fifth place in the women’s 800 free relay with a time of 7:28:26.

Camille Okelberry came out strong Saturday morning and earned fifth in the women’s 1650 free with a time of 17:20.16. Her teammates Alexandra Dodds and Cheyenne McLaws followed close behind in sixth (17:26.56) and seventh place (18:10.32), respectively. Cougar Dallin Johnson finished top-10 in the men’s 1650 free with a time of 16:39.02 in the event.

Freshman Riley Buer swam among the top 10 in the women’s 200 breast in her first college invitational. She completed the event in 2:21.59.

Bennion, McCormick, McMullan and Dodds competed as a team to take sixth in the women’s 400 relay in a time of 3.28.46.

The Cougars will take another two-week break before heading to Austin, Texas, for the Texas Invite. The meet will be held Dec. 5-7 at the Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.

PROVO, Utah – Warmer weather is ahead for the BYU swim team who travels to Las Vegas for the UNLV Invite hosted by UNLV and also for the dive team who travels to Tucson, Ariz. for the Wildcat Diving Invite hosted by the University of Arizona.

“This isn’t about how high we can place at the invitational, per se,” BYU head coach John Brooks said regarding the UNLV Invite. “It’s more about individuals improving. There’s going to be some really fast swimmers and tough competition, we’re hoping for the best”

The three-day meet (Nov. 21-23) is set-up much like conference championship format. The swimmers compete at 9 a.m. each morning with preliminaries in hopes of swimming finals in the evenings beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The invite is packed with competition and a few top-ranked teams in the country. Ten teams total the women’s side, the host UNLV, No. 1 California, No. 17 UCLA, Arizona State, Colorado State, Northern Arizona, Oregon State, UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming. For the men, seven teams compete including host UNLV, No. 5 Stanford, Arizona State, Northern Arizona, UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming.

In Arizona, the diving team competes in a two-day meet (Nov. 22-23), also in a similar conference format. Preliminaries begin at noon on Friday and 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, and finals begin at 3:18 p.m. and 2:18 p.m., respectively.

“The divers’ goal is to see how well they place in our zone, because the majority of divers there will be from our zone,” Brooks said regarding the Wildcat Invite. “This invite helps prepare them for zone competitions to ultimately qualify for NCAAs [championships] but also gives them the chance to browse the competition on a national level.”

Bryce Farabee, Haley Francois, Matt Hopper, Megan Johnson, Mackenzie Rands, Nicholas Suder, Raleigh Williams Taylor and Edward Young compete with for the Cougars. They face competitors from USC, UNLV, University of Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, SDSU, Boise State, Northern Arizona, UNM and UCLA.

Live results from the UNLV meet will be posted here and are also accessible via mobile devices on the free Meet Mobile app.