FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (November 4, 2023) – Led by three first-place finishes from senior Maddy Rey, the Northern Arizona Swimming and Diving team successfully defended the Wall Aquatic Center in its regular season home opener, defeating New Mexico by a score of 183-102 on Saturday.
"Maddy is incredibly tough and is a great leader for us," head coach Andy Johns said. "She started her races fast from the start and did really well. It is nice to see her perform like that, and it is a good sign for what is to come from her."
Rey took home top-billing in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:53.10, a 56.44 time in the 100-yard butterfly, and finished five seconds better than the next-best swimmer in the 200-yard individual medley by recording a 2:07.98.
Out of the 16 events, Northern Arizona swept nine of 16 total events, with a sweep counted as having the top-three scores in an event. Seven of those nine were from swimming events as the Lumberjacks swept both the 1 and 3-meter platform dives.
"Our girls really enjoy swimming at home," Johns said. "They are excited to swim in this pool in front of their families and friends, and we have a really great setup here. It is awesome to see great effort, energy, and attitude across the board. There are definitely some things that we need to work on and clean up before we head to the invite at Colorado Mesa."
To start the meet, it was the NAU A Relay that finished ahead of the Lumberjacks B group in the 200-yard medley relay. The Lumberjacks would finish the two relays having the best time in both with a 1:45.39 and 1:35.73, respectively.
After having the best time in the 1,000-yard freestyle at New Mexico last season, junior Casey Craffey did it again, closing the thousand with a mark of 10:34.00. Craffey would also finish first in the 500-yard freestyle.
The Lumberjacks had the best five finishes in the 100-yard backstroke, which Sophie Velitchkov won at 56.24 and was followed by Gracie Munk, Annie Carlton, Jamie Dellwardt and Abigail Tashlein. Velitchkov's 200-yard backstroke time of 2:06.27 was also the fastest in the event.
Cydnie Perkins was the leader in the NAU sweep of the 100-yard breaststroke event with a 1:05.63 finish. Perkins would also have the best mark in the 200-yard breaststroke as well.
Of the seven entries in the 200-yard butterfly, Northern Arizona had the six best times in the event, which was claimed by Elsa Musselman, who had the fastest time by more than two seconds with a 2:08.98 finish.
It was a much closer margin in the 50-yard freestyle, and Sarah Dorrheim's 24.45 was .2 seconds faster than New Mexico's Jordan Foster to continue the Lumberjacks run in the meet.
Victoria Knapp had the highest total in both the 1-meter dives and 3-meter dives, scoring 285.53 in the 1-meter and 327.30 in the 3-meter.
The swimmers and divers will be competing in two different invites in two weeks. The NAU swimmers will participate in the Colorado Mesa Invitational in Grand Junction from Nov. 15-18, while the divers will host the first of two Lumberjack Diving Invites starting Nov. 16 and going through Nov. 18.
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