The Colorado State Rams rolled to a dual meet victory Wednesday night in a matchup with in-state rivals Northern Colorado.
Highlighting the action for CSU was junior diver Ariana Milone, who smashed the team record with a 329.03-point performance on the 3-meter springboard.
Milone swept the diving events on the night, and will have another chance to show her stuff this coming weekend, with the Air Force Diving Invite taking place Friday and Saturday.
Her swimming teammates, meanwhile, will dual Air Force on Saturday after winning 11 of 14 swimming events Wednesday.
That was headed by junior breaststroker Cristina Bassani, who equaled Milone’s individual win total with dual wins. Bassani swept the breaststrokes, going 1:05.71 in the 100 and 2:24.00 in the 200. Both wins came by a full second or more.
Northern Colorado put up a big fight on the road, keying on a strong night from sophomore Carleigh Barrett. Barrett took home two wins and narrowly missed a third for the Bears.
Barrett kicked off the night with a 10:37.87 win in the 1000 free, topping the field by almost seven seconds. She’d come back to show off her versatility and endurance by taking the 200 fly in 2:07.37.
The 500 free nearly became Barrett’s third win, but at the 200-mark, Colorado State’s Allie Jacobs pulled away and never gave up her lead. Jacobs wound up winning in 5:11.41 to Barrett’s 5:14.65.
The only other Northern Colorado winner on the night was another sophomore, Laura Ramirez. With the meet all but over score-wise, Ramirez kept fighting in the night’s second-to-last individual swimming race. Ramirez was 58.77 to top a whole host of CSU Rams in the 100 fly.
Ramirez nearly came back after the diving break to win the 200 IM, but the event went to CSU’s Mackenzie Thornton in 2:11.26 with Ramirez second.
Freshman Katie Kicklighter pulled off the 100 free win in a youthful event for CSU. Kicklighter was 52.26 for the win, with fellow rookie Colleen Olson second (53.45) and sophomore Teagan Griffith third (54.51).
Olson had won the 200 free earlier, going 1:55.08.
Other individual winners for Colorado State included Jess Shepard in the 100 back (57.37), Karin Roh in the 50 free (24.66) and Liz Prasse in the 200 back (2:09.53).
That capped off a 188-110 win for Colorado State, who will wrap up the regular season at Air Force this weekend before starting final preparations for the Mountain West Championships. This is the final dual meet for the Northern Colorado swimmers before the WAC Championships in late February.
