Women's Swimming | 2/26/2026 10:18:00 PM
Utah Tech swimmers combined to break three school records and made it to the podium on day two of the 2026 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Women's Swimming and Diving Championships on Thursday night at the PSJA Natatorium in Pharr, Texas.
Through the first two days of competition, the Trailblazers stand in seventh place with 265 points, just 15 points back of sixth place Pepperdine (280 pts). Northern Arizona is in the lead with 509.5 points, followed by New Mexico State (471 pts) in second and Northern Colorado (406.5 pts) in third.
The Trailblazers wasted little time breaking their first record during the session, doing so in the 200-yard free relay, with the team of
Gabby Henry,
Natalia Zmierczak,
Reagan Patterson and
Nia Turagavou just missing the podium with a fourth-place time of 1:32.17.
Henry got off to a great start, opening with a 23.18 (#4 all-time at Utah Tech) 50 yards, as the team wound up breaking the previous school record by over one second.
The second school standard fell in the 500 free with
Cera Mallory breaking her own record with a 4:53.19, which was good for a fourth place finish in the championship final.
Utah Tech made it to the podium in the 200 IM, when
Mary Sims Cross touched the wall in third with a school record time of 2:02.22.
For the junior from Knoxville, Tenn., it marked the fourth time in her Trailblazer career that she medaled at a conference championship meet. Cross won a silver medal in the 100 backstroke at last year's WAC meet, while she claimed two bronze medals in both the 100 and 200 back finals in the 2024 WAC championships.
In the final event of night two, the 50 free final, Henry bettered her earlier relay time earlier 0.04 seconds with a sixth place time of 23.14 (#3 all-time at Utah Tech) in the championship heat, while Patterson followed in eighth overall at 23.37 (#8 all-time at Utah Tech).
Meanwhile in the preliminary session time trials earlier in the day on Thursday,
Marta Valkovska clocked the third-fastest time in program history in the 50 breaststroke with a 30.28, and
Naomi Nakaya recorded the fifth-fastest 50 butterfly time in school history at 25.85.
Day three of the MPSF Championships will get underway at 9 a.m. (MT), with the preliminary heats in the 100 butterfly. The final races for the third day will follow at 5 p.m. (MT).
