HOUSTON - Bailey Heydra added to her stellar 2024-25 campaign in Wednesday's opening day of the 2025 Mountain West Swimming & Diving Championships, capturing gold in the 1-Meter Springboard.

The Mountain West gold is the second of Heydra's career, and is her second conference title on 1-Meter (2022). It also adds to the treasure chest of gold for Nevada Diving, as Heydra's gold is the program's 25th all-time at the Mountain West meet, and her event title is the 34th by a Nevada diver under head coach Jian Li You, who announced her retirement last Friday.

The Wolf Pack 800 free relay, which entered its final as the fifth seed, bettered its previous season-best time by just over seven seconds, capturing the bronze in 7:11.75.

Combined with the fifth-place finish of diver Lucia Gabino on 1-Meter Springboard and the 200 medley relay's fourth-place finish, Nevada ended Day 1 in second place on the team leaderboard with 163 points, 21 behind San Diego State.

Heydra and Gabino set the tone early on that this would be a bounce-back season for the Wolf Pack divers after the contingent had been shutout of Mountain West gold in 2024, the first time such a thing had happened since Nevada joined the conference in 2012-13.

With a 2.6DD dive in the second round, Heydra posted a score of 63.70 to take the lead and set the pace for the rest of the field. A score of 58.50 on her fifth dive just about put the field away, and she clinched her second-career Mountain West gold with a 53.75 score on her final dive, finishing at 328.70, ahead of San Diego State's Valentina Lopez Arevalo.

Gabino also used a second-round dive to catapult herself into medal contention, scoring 59.80 on a 2.6DD dive of her own. The 2023 Mountain West Diver of the Year would go on to finish fifth with a final score of 297.00.

The 800 free relay got out to a strong start thanks to Enkhkhuslen Batbayar's opening leg, which had the Wolf Pack in second place and set a 200 freestyle Nevada record of 1:45.53. Nevada would remain in second at the halfway point, although UNLV took the lead spot from Wyoming, and dropped to third, behind San Diego State, entering the anchor leg. Keira-Lee Allott dove in for the anchor leg, and bravely held off a charging Washington State to keep the Pack on the podium.

The night session opened with the 200 medley relay, with the Wolf Pack entering as the top seed. Scarlett Ferris got Nevada out to an early lead on the backstroke leg, handing off to Sara Mihalic on breaststroke, who touched with the Pack holding a slim lead of seven-hundredths of a second at the midway point. Nevada dropped to third heading into the anchor freestyle leg, trailing leader San Diego State by 0.31 of a second, and ended up fourth, edged off the podium by UNLV by 0.14 of a second despite setting a school record time of 1:37.63.

Team Standings (Through 3 Events)
1. San Diego State - 184
2. Nevada - 163
3. UNLV - 160
4. Wyoming - 154
5. Fresno State - 142
6. New Mexico - 127
7. Washington State - 116
8. Air Force - 108
9. Colorado State - 100
10. San José State - 84

Nevada Day 1 Event Results

Event 1 - 200 Medley Relay
1. Washington State - 1:36.51
4. Nevada - 1:37.63

Event 2 - 1-Meter Springboard
1. Bailey Heydra - 328.70
5. Lucia Gabino - 297.00

Event 3 - 800 Free Relay
1. UNLV - 7:07.06
3. Nevada - 7:11.75