BYU swimmers fall just short of Arizona State

BYU vs. ASU Meet Results

TEMPE, Ariz. – The BYU men’s (151-148) and women’s (182-111) swim teams fell short against the Arizona State Sun Devils Saturday afternoon at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center in Tempe, Arizona.

"It was a really tough meet for our men and women," head coach John Brooks said. "Their women's team is tough and our men should have won their meet, but we had a false start on the last relay and ended up losing the meet by three points. It was tough."

The men’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of Jake Taylor, Mitchell Allphin, Evan Berger and McKay King had a chance to win the meet for the men’s squad in the last event of the day. The team needed just a second-place finish to secure enough points for the win, but a false start disqualified the team and left the Cougars just short of the Sun Devils.

The men’s 200-yard medley relay team made up of Taylor, Michael King, Rainer Ng and Rafael Alfaro picked up the first Cougar victory of the afternoon, touching the wall in 1:31.32. Ali Tippets finished first in the women’s 3-meter dive, scoring a 268.95. Her teammate, Megan Johnson Harris finished second with a score of 264.45.

Kevin Dreesen won the men’s 1-meter dive with a final score of 301.88, Matt Hopper finished a distant second with a 263.25.

Ng also recorded a first-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke, coming in with a final time of 49.20.

Berger picked up a win in the 50-yard freestyle finishing in 21.36.

Coming in with a time of 2:07.12, Lillian Moore was a second-place finisher in the women’s 200-yard butterfly.

Taylor finished first in the men’s 200-yard backstroke, touching the wall in 1:47.88. He also picked up a second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:40.37.

Ciera Marsh Keller and Haley Bertoldo finished second and third in the women’s 100 back, finishing with times of 58.13 and 58.15, respectively.

Luis Ventura finished the men’s 500-yard freestyle in 4:35.64, fast enough for a first-place finish.

Alora Foliaki (52.82) and Brenna Dickson (54.62) finished second and third in the women’s 100-yard freestyle.

Senior captain Hayden Palmer won the men’s 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:01.63.

The Cougars will be back in action against Denver on Saturday Jan. 24 at the Richards Building Pool in Provo .