COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. & LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Northern Arizona swimming & diving team completed their regular season on Saturday with a dual meet against the University of Wyoming. The swimmers competed against the Cowgirls, as well as host UNLV in an unscored meet, in Las Vegas while the divers wrapped up competition at the Air Force Diving Invitational. Despite strong efforts in the pool and on the boards, NAU fell to a high quality Wyoming squad.

"Overall it was a good day just to race which we needed to do," said head coach Andy Johns regarding the NAU swimmers. "Both Wyoming and UNLV are very good teams and a little ahead of us in terms of preparation for their championship meet, but we saw some good things. I think we're looking forward to getting ready for the WAC meet."

Freshman Alina Staffeldt will head into next month's WAC Championships with momentum after a pair of individual runner-up finishes in the 100 and 200 butterfly events. Staffeldt was less than half a second from taking first in the 200, as she was edged out by .32 seconds with a second-place time of 2:02.47. She then posted a time of 56.25 in the 100 fly for her second runner-up finish.

Senior Caitlin Wright also took home a second-place finish in the 1,000 freestyle with a season-best time of 10:22.71. Wright was one of two Lumberjacks in the top five of the event with junior Kendall Brown placing fifth with a time of 10:32.58.

Wright teamed with freshman Kimmy Richter for a strong showing in the 500 freestyle as the pair took the third and fourth positions. Richter placed third with a time of 5:06.08, just in front of Wright who clocked a time of 5:06.46. Junior Eva Pold also joined Staffeldt in the top five of the 200 fly with a time of 2:07.28, good for fifth overall.

In the breaststrokes, sophomore Urte Kazakeviciute posted the fastest NAU time of 1:06.53 in the 100 and freshman Melanie Harris was the Lumberjacks' top 200 finisher with a time of 2:24.44. Sophomore Jori Lindquist recorded a time of 58.46 in the 100 backstroke, before posting a season-best time of 53.92 in the 100 free, while junior Lindsay Clark-Warren touched the wall in 2:08.85 in the 200 back.

Junior Monica Pruett placed third head-to-head with Wyoming in the day's final individual event – the 200 IM – with a time of 2:11.93.

In Colorado, the NAU divers finished the Air Force Diving Invitational on a high note with sophomore Alexa Geiger and freshman Emma Simmonds earning praise for their performances. Geiger was NAU's top finisher in 18th during the 3-meter preliminaries with a score of 253.55 with junior Chelsea Jackson one spot behind in 19th with a score of 252.60. Simmonds shot up the leaderboard with her strong day placing 22nd with a score of 245.90.

Freshman Alyssa Loeffelman and junior Carlye Townsend rounded out the Lumberjack divers on Saturday, placing 42nd and 43rd respectively with scores of 199.65 and 198.50.

"Lex dove very well and consistently coming off an injury and Emma dove great and both of them were only a few points out of the finals," said diving coach Nikki Huffman. "I was pleased with all of them but Lex and Emma were the highlights of the day. All in all we were pleased and there are still things we need to work on over the next few weeks (before conference)."

In the dual meet scoring with Wyoming's divers also at Air Force, the Cowgirls claimed the top two spots with Geiger, Jackson and Simmonds taking the final three scoring positions. From Friday's 1-meter competition, Wyoming also held the top two scoring spots with NAU filling out the scoring in three, four and five.

The 'Jacks will now spend the next month preparing for their defense of the WAC Championship before heading off to San Antonio, Texas for the conference meet from Feb. 25-28.