Rams Place Fifth at Mountain West Championships

LAS VEGAS/COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – There was so much to look forward to and build off of walking off the deck.

At the 2020 Mountain West Championships, Colorado State's women's swimming and diving team produced a school-record score (830.5) in the 24-place format, doing it by having every scoring swimmer contribute to the total – the first time that had happened in coach Christopher Woodard's tenure.

But then injuries and COVID took away the Rams' best point producers in the lanes and the diving well, as well as a couple of sophomores who had combined to place four times in last year's meet.

So what's a team to do?

Go out and try to do it again.

Scratch that. Do it better.

"It was a difficult season to manage our way through, and we didn't know what to expect and they exceeded our expectations," Woodard said. "It can be difficult going through these meets, it can be really tiring toward the end, and this year I don't think we were necessarily prepared for it, but they just did it on heart. There's going to be some weak legs and hoarse voices tomorrow."

The Rams finished fifth, just as they did a year ago, but scored 925 points in the process. All 19 scoring participants at the Buchanan Natatorium on the UNLV campus added to the total, with 17 of them maxing out their individual efforts by scoring in three events each. Swimming host UNLV unseated two-time defending conference champion San Diego State for the team title with 1,349 points, doing so by clipping Nevada in the final race, the 400-yard freestyle relay, by .1 seconds.

Heading in, Kristina Friedrichs said the key for her was having fun, and she intended to make sure the entire team did. She hit her goal, and then some.

"I definitely think so. We had multiple people who had friends on different teams, and they were coming up to us and saying it looked like we were having so much fun the entire time we were there," Friedrichs said. "I think that just really speaks to the character of our team and show up and have a good time no matter what.

"I think that was a big part of our meet. Nothing about this year was ideal, and I think we all just really carried each other through this meet. We showed up with energy to every single session, and you can really tell it makes a difference in everybody's mentality. We lit it up in prelims, then we'd come back in the finals and just fight even harder for each other."

The Rams had a four swimmers in the championship finals, with Friedrich's fourth-place finish in the 100 freestyle (50.46) the best of all. Abbey Owenby was fifth in the 1,650 free with a 17:08.79; Hannah Sykes placed seventh in the 200 butterfly in 2:02.03, as did Liza Lunina in the 200 backstroke (a personal-record of 2:02.54). But there were outstanding efforts behind them all.

In the B final of the fly, Jennae Frederick and Kendra Preski went 1-2, placing ninth and 10^th respectively in times of 2:03.12 and 2:-03.51, while teammate Madison Hunter was 14^th in 2:05.63.

Owenby's finish was backed by the 11^th- and 12^th- place showings of Hunter (17:18.63) and Preski (17:18.71), and in the 100 free, Mundy hit a PR of 50.76 to place 10^th, with Anika Johnson in 13^th (51.24) and Megan Hager was 14^th in 51.76.

Mundy said the team didn't look for excuses, they sought opportunities all weekend.

"Everybody was like, they're down, but we thought, we're still here, we still have lanes," Mundy said. "We still have a chance to do as well as possible, and I think that's all we can ever ask for, just going in, having fun and kicking butt as much as possible.

"We came in and we played music, and we were ramped up and so excited from the get-go. In swimming, you learn from mistakes, obviously, and most everybody has similar things. If you're doing the 100 fly, you take from that and build from that. It's a progression of learning what the pool is like, too. It's weird, because every pool is different, but we just came in and did as good as we could."

A flurry of impressive swims just kept coming.

Lunina's placing led a group of five Ram scorers in the event, with Caroline Perry (11^th, 2:02.74), Rachel Saxon (15^th, 2:04.39), Katelyn Bartley (19^th, 2:02.48) and Elsa Litteken (20^th, 2:04.20) in tow. Even in the 200 breaststroke without an A finalist, the Rams gained ground as Kate Meunier hit a PR of 2:18.41 to place 10^th, and Olivia LeBlanc went a 2:22.35 to place 23^rd. Combined, they dropped more than 7 seconds from their preliminary swims and gained six spots in the standings.

"I'm so unbelievably proud of everybody," Mundy said. "Everybody did so well, did amazing and took every obstacle they have faced this year and taken it and just exceeded our expectations."

Senior diver Rachel Holland capped her career by winning the consolation finals on the platform at the Air Force Academy Natatorium. Her score of 220.25 was a personal record and the third-best score in program history on the board. Junior Katie Leonard placed 15^th and took the fifth spot on the Rams' all-time list with her personal-best score of 200.15.

When Holland entered the program as a freshman with Skylar Williams, they decided they wanted to help turn things around. Having Chris Bergere back for a second year as coach put a stopper in that revolving door, and Holland is excited about the future of the program after watching Leonard and the younger divers compete exhibition at conference.

Her final gift was her best performance on the platform, one she came at with a relaxed mind.

"It was definitely awesome," Holland said. "I went in with no expectations. I was like, I'm going to have fun, and whatever happens, happens. It was like how it all kind of worked together and have a good round and win.

"I mean, it's still said; it's bittersweet. Now I have this fire underneath me. I won consols, now what's next? Now there's not anything next, but it's definitely a top moment of the career to look back on, for sure."

The team capped off the final day with a fourth-place showing in the 400 free relay, with Friedrichs anchoring the foursome of Mundy, Johnson and Hager in 3:24.02. It's a race she was excited about on the day, and now even more so for the future with them all returning.

Then again, no one knows what the next year will bring. The Rams didn't expect to be without four of their top eight returning scorers, but they attacked races nonetheless. Practices, too.

"I saw it in their warmup habits, too," Woodard said. "They were really cognizant of it. That's sometimes a differentiation you can see with teams is they get to the last day and you can see some kids just skip out on the warmup, they're just too tired. They're not prepared for races, and our kids were not doing that. They were still preparing like it was the first day and the most important race.

In a season where the Rams once again had just one home meet and were limited to four duals total, they stuck to the details where the training yardage was absent and turned it into a strong showing at the final event of the season.

They needed everybody on deck, and none of them let a teammate down.

"There's a host of reasons why people could say this wasn't an ideal year, and there are definitely teams out there that are making excuses," Friedrichs said. "We said it has been crazy, but we're going to show what we did despite that, and I think that showed in our swims and our performances. I think we decided from the beginning we weren't going to let there be excuses this year and give it our all despite it all."

Many of them had never been to Las Vegas, and with COVID-19 still a major concern, there was no chance to see the places they've heard about. Until the end of the meet, when the team bus took the long way back to the hotel to tour The Strip and see the bright lights.

And as they did, the team broke out in a chorus of "Hallelujah," which seemed aptly fitting. They made it to the end, and came away with reason to celebrate.

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Rams Place Fifth at Mountain West Championships

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Players Mentioned

Katelyn Bartley

Jennae Frederick

Kristina Friedrichs

Megan Hager

Rachel Holland

Madison Hunter

Anika Johnson

Olivia LeBlanc

Katie Leonard

Elsa Litteken

Liza Lunina

Kate Meunier

Abbey Owenby

Caroline Perry

Kendra Preski

Rachel Saxon

Hannah Sykes

Skylar Williams