GREELEY, Colo. and LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Facing a difficult back-to-back, the Northern Arizona swimming & diving team rose to the challenge Saturday morning, winning 10 of 13 events en route to defeating Northern Colorado handily, 157-86. The Lumberjacks improved to 5-3 in dual meets and remained perfect against the Bears in nine all-time meetings.
 
"Our girls did a great job of coming back from last night's tough meet and had a lot of energy," said head coach Andy Johns. "We looked the sharpest of the three teams, all of whom competed yesterday, and it was great to see that. We're looking forward to the next couple of weeks to get ready for Boise State."
 
In the 13-event meet, which also included Colorado State whom NAU lost narrowly to Friday night, the Lumberjacks claimed overall wins in seven events. When comparing just head-to-head with Northern Colorado in a scoring format, NAU came out ahead in all but three events including both relays and both diving events.
 
The Lumberjacks swept the top two scoring spots in five events and went one-two-three in the 500 freestyle and 200 butterfly against their WAC rivals.
 
Junior Christina Torrente completed a perfect weekend by sweeping the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions for the second consecutive meet. Torrente won on 1-meter in a landslide by 55 points with a score of 277.28 in addition to easily winning the 3-meter event with a score of 269.70.
 
The Lumberjack sprinters handled the Bears with senior Roni Houck and freshman Elisa Rodriguez alternating wins in the 50 and 100 freestyles. Rodriguez (24.15) and Houck (24.49) recorded a one-two finish in the 50, before Houck (53.25) edged out Rodriguez (53.59) in the 100. For Rodriguez, it was her second 50 free win of the weekend.
 
Redshirt senior Monique King placed first overall in the 200 free with a time of 1:54.59, followed by freshman Sam Milewski who tied for second with a time of 1:55.79. Milewski's 200 free performance came in the event right after she placed second overall – and first head-to-head with Northern Colorado – in the 1,000. Milewski posted a time of 10:33.47 ahead of senior Kimmy Richter, who recorded a time of 10:38.34 to allow NAU to go one-two on Northern Colorado in the first individual event.
 
King (5:06.37), Richter (5:09.87) and Milewski (5:11.48) combined to give NAU a one-two-three finish in the 500 free later in the meet. Overall, they occupied the second, third and fourth positions behind Colorado State's lead swimmer.
 
NAU's other top three scoring sweep of Northern Colorado came in the 200 fly where senior Alina Staffeldt led the charge with a time of 2:05.25. Junior Andrea Schmidt was the runner-up at 2:06.84 and sophomore Kate Bier, while placing fifth overall, also touched the wall ahead of Northern Colorado with a time of 2:12.57.
 
The 'Jacks narrowly missed picking up first place overall honors in the day's opening 400 medley relay finishing with a time of 3:54.28. While NAU was a mere .09 seconds behind Colorado State, NAU finished way ahead of Northern Colorado's time of 3:59.09. NAU did end the meet with a first-place victory in the 200 free relay as Richter, Rodriguez, Schmidt and Staffeldt posted a winning time of 1:38.06.
 
Freshman Niamh McDonagh was NAU's top finisher in both the 200 individual medley and 200 breaststroke. McDonagh placed third overall in the 200 IM with a time of 2:10.13 and fifth in the 200 breast with a time of 2:29.54. In the 200 backstroke, freshmen Sarah O'Connor and Lauren Hazel were fourth and fifth respectively – but second and third versus Northern Colorado.
 
"The team likes the challenge and they really believe that Saturday morning with 200 (distances) is our session," Johns said. "They rose to the occasion today, and you can start to feel the championship meet focus coming around. They're competitors."
 
In Los Angeles on the second day of the Bruin Diving Invitational, junior Tatiana Kurach qualified for her second straight finals on Saturday, doing so on the 3-meter springboard. Kurach recorded an eighth-place finish with a two-round score of 585.15. Following the qualifying prelim round, Kurach stood in seventh with a score of 292.35.
 
Kurach is one of four divers to notch a top eight finish on both springboards through the first two days of the ultra-competitive Bruin Invite.
 
Junior Olivia Payne (218.15) and freshman Jenny Cheetham (197.40) also competed for the Lumberjacks and placed 36th and 43rd respectively in the preliminaries.
 
"I was so pleased with all of their efforts," said diving coach Nikki Huffman. "Tatiana went for a really big dive – a newer dive – and didn't it go well, but she did her other dives so well she only dropped one spot to eighth. Olivia also had one dive not go so well and without that one dive she may have snuck into finals. Jenny was a little off, but this is a great learning experience for her."
 
Kurach, Payne and Cheetham will wrap up action at the UCLA hosted meet on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. MST. They will dive off the platform for just the second time this season and results will be available at divemeets.com.