Swimmers to Las Vegas; Divers to Arizona

PROVO, Utah – Warmer weather is ahead for the BYU swim team who travels to Las Vegas for the UNLV Invite hosted by UNLV and also for the dive team who travels to Tucson, Ariz. for the Wildcat Diving Invite hosted by the University of Arizona.

“This isn’t about how high we can place at the invitational, per se,” BYU head coach John Brooks said regarding the UNLV Invite. “It’s more about individuals improving. There’s going to be some really fast swimmers and tough competition, we’re hoping for the best”

The three-day meet (Nov. 21-23) is set-up much like conference championship format. The swimmers compete at 9 a.m. each morning with preliminaries in hopes of swimming finals in the evenings beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The invite is packed with competition and a few top-ranked teams in the country. Ten teams total the women’s side, the host UNLV, No. 1 California, No. 17 UCLA, Arizona State, Colorado State, Northern Arizona, Oregon State, UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming. For the men, seven teams compete including host UNLV, No. 5 Stanford, Arizona State, Northern Arizona, UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming.

In Arizona, the diving team competes in a two-day meet (Nov. 22-23), also in a similar conference format. Preliminaries begin at noon on Friday and 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, and finals begin at 3:18 p.m. and 2:18 p.m., respectively.

“The divers’ goal is to see how well they place in our zone, because the majority of divers there will be from our zone,” Brooks said regarding the Wildcat Invite. “This invite helps prepare them for zone competitions to ultimately qualify for NCAAs [championships] but also gives them the chance to browse the competition on a national level.”

Bryce Farabee, Haley Francois, Matt Hopper, Megan Johnson, Mackenzie Rands, Nicholas Suder, Raleigh Williams Taylor and Edward Young compete with for the Cougars. They face competitors from USC, UNLV, University of Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, SDSU, Boise State, Northern Arizona, UNM and UCLA.

Live results from the UNLV meet will be posted here and are also accessible via mobile devices on the free Meet Mobile app.