DeCecco, Mills Lead Utah On First Day Of Pac-12 Championships
TUCSON, Ariz. – The Utah diving and women's swim team began action at the 2021 Pac-12 Championships on Wednesday, kicking off the event with the women's 1-meter diving event and the 800 free relay and 400 medley relay for the swimmers.
Utah began the day at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center in Tucson, Ariz., with the Ute divers kicking off the conference event. Lizzy DeCecco and Lexi Mills advanced through to the finals after strong performances in the prelims to have Utah as the only team to have two divers finish in the top-seven.
DeCecco led the Utes in the finals and posted her personal best on the 1m, scoring a 300.60 to place fourth overall. DeCecco's score of 300.60 moved her to sixth all-time on the 1m in school history. Mills wrapped up her day with a seventh-place finish after totaling 268.10. Emma Ruchala ended the first day of competition strong in the consolation final where she placed fourth for a 12th-place finish overall to also earn points for Utah in the team standings.
"We were phenomenal today," said head diving coach Richard Marschner. "It was so fun to see the women compete with such confidence and joy, and the results flowed from that. We were the only team with two women in the top-7 and I think we surprised some people a bit. This was a huge day for us and I'm so proud of our women, not just for today, but for their entire effort and preparation to get to this point through a very difficult past 12 months."
On Wednesday night in Houston, the women's swim team got action underway with the 800 free relay and 400 medley relay. Utah's 'A' team of Audrey Reimer, Alyssa Watson, Kayla Miller and Zofia Niemczak placed sixth in the 800 free relay with a time of 7:19.77 to begin the night.
In the 400 medley relay, the Utes had Reimer, Charity Pittard, Emma Lawless and Maddie Woznick team up to place fifth. The medley team finished with a time of 3:37.39.
After three events, Utah is in third place with 162 points. Arizona sits in first place with 179 points, while California is in second with 168 points. Behind the Utes are Stanford (157), UCLA (142), USC (117) and Washington State (94).
Utah divers and women's swim will continue the four-day conference event on Thursday. On the diving side, the Utah men will compete on the 1-meter boards beginning at 10 a.m. MT with the prelims and the finals at 10:50 a.m. MT. The women will start action on the 3-meter event at 1:10 p.m. MT for the prelims and 3:10 p.m. MT for the finals.
Utah women's swim will kick off the day's competition at 9 a.m. MT with the 500 free, 200 IM, and 50 free prelims. The finals will begin at 5 p.m. MT for the previous three events, along with the 200 free relay. Live results for the Pac-12 Championships can be found here. A schedule of how to watch the events, can be viewed here.