Falcons' Split Squads Complete Weekend Meets

Friday, February 16

Louisville, KY

Bowling Green State University

Louisville w/ Cincinatti (Diving Only)

February 18, 2024 | Women's Swimming & Diving

Friday Meet Results (PDF)Saturday Meet Results (PDF)Sunday Meet Results (PDF)

By: by Brady Shick BGSU Strategic Communications

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University swimming and diving teams competed in two separate events this weekend. The divers headed to Louisville to get a chance to dive in the facility that NCAA Diving Zones will take place in March. The swimmers had 7 of their members compete in Ohio State's Winter Invitational.

Each diver was able to pick two events to compete in across four different competitions. Most of the divers chose to compete in the 3-Meter Diving and the second 1-Meter diving. The divers were led by Senior Captain Rayah Blood, yet again. Blood finished second in the two events she competed in. In the 3-Meter Diving Blood placed second thanks to a score of 294.25. Then in the second 1-Meter Diving Blood finished second with a score of 263.35. Grace Ellis averaged 246.93 across the two 1-Meter Diving events taking first in one of them.

The seven swimmers that went down to Columbus had some of their strongest performances of the season. Starting in the 100 Butterfly and Carlie Blaesing at least one of Falcon swam below their seed below their seed time. Blaesing swam to a 9^th place finish and beat her seed time by 0.37 seconds. In the 200 Freestyle it was on lone Falcon Rylie Kennedy to continue the trend and beating her seed time by over a second.

In the 100 Breaststroke Martina Stefinec stepped up to the block and placing fifth beating her seed time by 0.57 seconds. Then in the last event with Falcon participation two of three Falcons beat their seed time with Sam Heywood showing the most improvement. Heywood beat her seed time by a remarkable 1.42 seconds in a 100-yard event.

Falcon Finishes
1M – 1. Grace Ellis 236.05
3M – 2. Rayah Blood 294.25, 3. Natalia Mayorga 293.05
1M – 2. Rayah Blood 263.35, 3. Sarah Butt 261.80
Platform – 3. Victoria Miller 177.40

200 Freestyle Relay – 2. Blaesing, Kennedy, Heywood, Harper 1:42.60
50 Freestyle – 13. Carlie Blaesing 24.91, 14. MaryEllen Wolff 24.99
400 Medley Relay – 2. Wolff, Stefinec, Blaesing, Kennedy 4:02.43
200 Medley Relay – 1. Harper, Stefinec, Blaesing, Wolff 1:47.55
100 Butterfly – 9. Carlie Blaesing 59.44
200 Freestyle – 11. Rylie Kennedy 2:01.77
100 Breaststroke – 4. Martina Stefinec 1:05.80
100 Backstroke – 5. Christy Harper 58.05, 7. MaryEllen Wolff 59.13

Mich'd Up
"The diving was incredibly competitive. Louisville has multiple NCAA finalists and one diver who just returned from World Championships in Qatar. But overall, we did incredibly well to show that we are peaking at the right time as we head into our conference championships."

Rickey Reacts
"The meet was a lot smaller than we expected. The team had to build their own excitement which they did. There were multiple lifetime and season bests among the swimmers that we were excited to see."

Up Next
The Falcons return to the pool in Athens, Ohio on February 28^th to compete in MAC Championships that will run through March 2^nd.

FOLLOW THE FALCONS
Be sure to follow the Falcons swimming and diving team throughout the season on social media.
Twitter – @BGAthletics and @FalconSwimDive
Instagram – 'bgfalcons' and 'bgsu_swimdive'
Facebook – 'BGSU Athletics'
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