Women's Swimming | 10/2/2024 4:15:00 PM

Utah Tech's 2024-25 season gets off the blocks this weekend as the Trailblazers travel to sunny Malibu to swim at the annual Pepperdine Rodionoff Invitational.

The two-day meet will be held on Friday and Saturday at the Waves' Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool. The meet will begin each day at 11 a.m. (MT). 
 
The Trailblazers will compete against the host Waves, along with fellow WAC member California Baptist, and San Diego in the D-I portion of the meet, while teams from Azusa Pacific, Concordia-Irvine, Biola, Westmont, Cal Lutheran and Pomona-Pitzer will be scored in a separate competition. 
 
COACHING STAFF: Utah Tech alumnus Shawn King begins his second season as head coach of the Trailblazer program.   
        In his first season poolside at Utah Tech, he guided the team to its second fastest season in school history, breaking seven school records, while collecting three All-WAC honors. In addition, the Trailblazers combined to post 75% life best times in competed events during the season.
Utah Tech also performed in the classroom, as the team earned CSCAA Division I Scholar All-America honors with a cumulative 3.79 GPA.
        Coach King is joined poolside by second-year assistant coach Colby Clark.

THE 2024-25 ROSTER: Utah Tech returns 11 swimmers from last season's squad that finished seventh overall and earned two medals at the 2024 WAC championship meet. 
        In all, the Trailblazers welcome back three total swimmers who have all medaled at previous WAC championship meets. 
        Sophomore Mary Sims Cross headlines the list after she enjoyed a stellar freshman campaign that saw her claim bronze medals in both the 100 and 200 back at last year's conference championships. Cross also broke the school record in the 200 IM (2:02.60) and swam the second-fastest 100 IM in program history earlier in her debut season.
        Redshirt senior Ginevra Molino is also back after she missed all of last season due to injury. Molino won bronze at the 2023 WAC Championships in the 400 IM with a record-breaking time of 4:18.98, and she also set the school's 400 IM long course record with a 4:57.81 earlier that year.
        Junior Natalia Zmierczak, who captured bronze as part of the Blazers' 400 free relay team at the 2023 WAC meet, also returns, as do a pair of fellow upperclassmen in senior Mandy Farnum and redshirt junior Paulina Sansores, who will look to return to form after missing most of last year due to injury. 
        Utah Tech welcomed back seven talented sophomores, four of whom re-wrote the record books as freshmen last season. 
        In addition to Cross, Grace Benson broke Utah Tech's 100 IM record (57.20) and swam the second-fastest 50 breast time (29.62) in her first year with the program, while Abby Hill shattered the school's 50 fly record and also posted top-10 all-time marks in two other events.
        Meanwhile, Cera Mallory broke the school record in the 1,000 free (10:06.78), and clocked the second-fastest times in program history in both the 500 free (4:56.12) and 1,650 free (17:05.05). 
        Additionally, sophomores Elli Effland, Kaiya Lawson and Sorina Rom will all look to improve on solid starts to their collegiate careers this upcoming season. 
        Utah Tech also brought in nine new freshmen who hope to make an immediate impact, including Dani Cannon (free/back/fly/relays), Alyssa Gordon (breast/IM), Zofia Gorska (free/relays), Allie Hayes (back/IM), Gabby Henry (free/fly/back/IM), Jordan Musselman (free/breast/fly/IM), Yara Olsen (free/breast), Kam Swanson (fly/IM), and Jenna Tracy (breast). 
        Four of the Trailblazers hail from Utah, while nine total states – Utah, California (2), Colorado (2), Oregon (2), Texas (2), Arizona (1), Indiana (1), Missouri (1), and Tennessee (1), along with three foreign countries – Italy (1), Mexico (1) and Poland (2), are represented on this year's roster.   
 
NEXT UP FOR THE TRAILBLAZERS: Utah Tech will continue its 2024 fall schedule with three days of intrasquad time trials at the HPC Pool from Oct. 31-Nov. 2.