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Valentina Lopez Arevalo named conference diver of the year
Source: goaztecs.com
Photo courtesy goaztecs.com
February 25, 2024 (Houston) - The San Diego State swim and dive program secured its third consecutive league title and fifth in the last six years after another series of superlative performances on Saturday at the 2024 Mountain West Championships inside the CRWC Natatorium on the University of Houston campus.
The Aztecs won five additional gold medals on the final day of the meet, finishing with a conference record 1,487.50 team points to easily outdistance second-place UNLV (1,256.50) by 231 points, followed by Colorado State (897), while Fresno State (886.50) and Nevada (886.50) rounded out the top five previous standard of 1,541.50 points set last season.
Successfully defending its crown, head coach Mike Shrader's program has now captured eight MW championships since the 2010-11 campaign.
For the week, SDSU claimed 11 event titles, including seven individual crowns, while the Aztecs won four of five relays for the week.
Individually, Valentina Lopez Arevalo earned Mountain West Diver of the Meet honors on Saturday, marking the third time a San Diego State competitor has received such distinction after Ximena Lechuga Gonzalez was presented with the award in 2019 and 2022.
The afternoon finals commenced with the 1,650 freestyle, and the Aztecs’ lone participant in the event, Paige Mitchell, placed eighth with a season-fast swim of 16:59.16, shaving over 16 seconds off her previous best this year.
SDSU boasted four swimmers in the 200 backstroke finals where Alex Roberts missed surpassing her school and conference record by just .07 seconds after touching the wall with a season-best effort of 1:52.92 to successfully defend her conference title and improve on her NCAA “B” cut time.
In addition, Abby Storm finished fourth after clocking at 1:56.34 to meet another NCAA “B cut qualifying standard, while Reka Nyiradi finished fifth at 1:57.30, followed by Riley Tapley (1:58.91), who took seventh.
Earlier in the preliminaries, Nyiradi logged a career-fast swim of 1:56.52, which ranks seventh in program history.
As the meet progressed, Smithbaker collected the Scarlet and Black’s second gold medal of the day after recording a personal-best time of 48.54, which ranks second on the school’s all-time charts and exceeds an NCAA “B” cut.
Additionally, Alyssa Schiller placed sixth in the race with a career-best performance of her own, clocking in at 49.73, while Avery Turney won the “B” finals of the event and finished ninth overall with a time of 50.07, edging teammate Evonne Stehr, whose swim of 50.17 marked a personal best as well.
Christiana Williams soon added to the Aztecs’ medal count after taking home the gold for the second straight season in the 200 breaststroke, where she touched the wall with a season-fast swim of 2:09.19, while Moa Bergdahl finished a close second with a career-best 2:10.73, as both times eclipsed NCAA “B” cut standards.
SDSU advanced three competitors to the finals of the 200 butterfly, where Wilma Johansson took home a silver medal with a season-best and NCAA “B” cut time of 1:57.85, while Nyiradi (1:59.53) and Mai McKenna (2:05.07) were slotted sixth and eighth, respectively.
The Aztecs also emerged triumphant in the 400 freestyle relay for the second year in a row, as Smithbaker joined forces with Stehr, Turney and Schiller to log the second-fastest time in school history of 3:16.62, missing the program record by just .03 seconds.
Likewise, Lopez Arevalo successfully defended her conference crown in the platform diving competition, compiling a season-best total of 340.70 points to shatter an NCAA Zone qualifying standard.
In addition, Summer Westmoreland finished sixth in the finals with a career-high score of 251.80, exceeding the Zone mark (225) as well.
2024 Mountain West Championships
Houston, Texas
CRWC Natatorium
Final Team Standings
1. San Diego State (1,487.50)
2. UNLV (1,256.50)
3. Colorado State (897)
4. Fresno State (886.50)
5. Nevada (854.50)
6. Wyoming (775)
7. Air Force (769)
8. San José State (591)
9. New Mexico (417)
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