LAS VEGAS -Â One-tenth of a second. That's what came between Nevada and its second Mountain West swimming and diving title Saturday in Las Vegas.
Trailing UNLV by a single point headed into the final event of the meet, the 400 free relay, the Wolf Pack quartet of
Josien Wijkhuijs,
Colette Berkenfield,
Emma Brady, and
Caitlyn McHugh took it down to the wire, but was out-touched by the Rebels' winning time of 3:21.09.
UNLV captured the team title with 1,349 points, with Nevada just nine off that pace at 1,340. It is Nevada's third-straight runner-up finish at the Mountain West Championships.
Nevada swimmers and divers collected a total of 19 medals (six gold, five silver, eight bronze) over the meet's 21 events. Junior
Julia Adamczyk was the Pack's most decorated performer of the meet, taking home a team-high three gold medals (200 Fly, 200 IM, 400 MR) and two bronze (400 IM, 200 MR).
The Pack captured two individual gold medals on Championship Night, the second of which, Donna Depolo's winning effort in the 200 Breast, helped power Nevada into the overall lead with 1,237 points. Depolo's winning time of 2:10.92 headlined a 1-3-7 run for the Pack in the event, as
Wiktoria Samula took bronze in 2:12.18, and
Gianni Pitto finished seventh.
Adamczyk took home her second gold of the meet with an outstanding effort to win the 200 Fly. Coming into the final as the sixth seed, Adamczyk overtook UNLV's Gabriella Lizzul over the final 50, touching in an even 2:00.00 to beat Lizzul by 0.65 of a second.
But UNLV took second, third, and fifth in the event, good enough to take a one-point lead over the Pack into the final event.
Caitlyn McHugh paced a strong start to the swimming portion of the finals, taking silver in the 1,650 free with a time of 16:53.02. McHugh captured the first heat of the event, and her time held up until UNLV's Teneka Ash won the third and final heat in 16:44.35.
Reese Lamph (17:12.05) and
Mariana Vignoli (17:14.24) finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
In the platform diving competition, at the Air Force Academy, all three Pack divers qualified for the championship final and earned top-8 finishes. Isa Vazquez Lopez finished fourth with a score of 228.10, with
Linnea Sorensen (226.35) fifth, and
Jessie Nowotny (215.50) eighth.
2020-21 Mountain West Swimming and Diving Championships Final Standings
1. UNLV - 1,349 points
2. Nevada - 1,340
3. San Diego State - 1,309
4. Wyoming - 965
5. Colorado State - 925
6. Fresno State - 829
7. Air Force - 726
8. San Jose State - 345