by Riley Bauling
Daily Lobo
The UNM women's swimming and diving team raced to a fourth-place finish at the Lobo Fall Invitational this weekend at UNM's Armond H. Seidler Natatorium.
The Lobos were led by junior Becca Barras and senior Tracey Berghian, who swept the one-meter and three-meter diving events.
Berghian dove to gold in the one-meter competition, while Barras captured first place in the three-meter.
Sophomore Robyn Miller was the top swimmer for the Lobos, placing second in the 500-meter freestyle, third in the 400-meter individual medley and third in the 200-meter freestyle.
"Our number one swimmer is Robyn Miller, but Whitney Thomson did well, too," UNM head swimming coach Bill Spahn said. "She had a pretty good meet. We expect her to make great improvement."
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Spahn said the team needs to make some improvements as the season progresses to be successful.
"It was our first meet and we competed hard," he said. "But we didn't swim real fast. We were average at the meet. We have a long ways to go."
The Lobos placed behind Colorado State, Northern Arizona University and Wyoming. UNM finished ahead of NMSU and the University of Northern Colorado.
The diving squad's stellar performance was significant because it is without a coach this season.
"The best performers this meet were the divers Kaley (Knafelc), Becca Barras and Tracey Berghian," Spahn said. "For them to do so well without a coach - their performance needs to be highlighted. I couldn't be more proud."
The meet was the last home competition of the season, and the final home meet for seniors Berghian, Alison Bushkill and Heather DiLuzio.
The season is still far from finished, but Spahn has simple expectations of what his athletes need to accomplish.
"The number one thing is that everyone has their best times by the end of the year," Spahn said. "It doesn't matter how well we do just as long as everyone improves their times."
Thomson said the team is not getting ahead of itself when it comes to setting unrealistic goals for the remainder of the season.
"I think for how hard we've been training, we did well," Thomson said. "We just want to keep a good, positive outlook and that's it."
Thomson said the Lobos' main objective is to place higher than their sixth-place finish in the MWC championships last year.
"We would like to move up in the conference," she said. "We have a really good chance to improve on that this year."
