The University of Denver’s Swim and Dive team is bringing back a couple of pieces of hardware after winning the Summit League Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota over the weekend. The women’s squad won their tenth straight title while the men’s squad took home their ninth title in 10 years, showcasing their recent dominance in the Summit League. 

Individual awards were given on the last day of the competition and several swimmers and divers on the women’s team took home awards. Redshirt senior Natalia Arky (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) took home Swimming Championship MVP, graduate student Zora Opalka (Bainbridge Island, Wash.) won the Diving Championship MVP award and freshman Mina Ada Solaker (Istanbul, Turkey) won the Newcomer of the Championship award. 

Two coaches also won awards. Head Diving Coach Aaron D’Addario won both the men’s and women’s awards for Diving Coach of the Year while Head Coach Alicia Hicken-Franklin won women’s Swimming Coach of the Year. D’Addario has now swept the diving coaching awards for the second year in a row. Hicken-Franklin has also won two straight Summit League Swimming Coach of the Year awards since she took the head coaching job in 2019. 

The competition started Wednesday and from the start, the Crimson and Gold dominated. The team won four events started off by junior diver Olivia Gordon (Las Vegas, Nev.) who took home the 1-Meter Dive championship. Gordon posted a 283.10 score en route to her victory as well as an NCAA zone cut. This was her first Summit League Championship victory as she finished second in the past two years in the 1-Meter Dive competition. 

Three more relay wins in the women’s 200 medley, women’s 800 free and men’s 800 free capped off Wednesday’s action. 

Another four wins in Thursday night’s action were highlighted by a Summit League record-breaking performance from sophomore Marco Nosack (Beaverton, Ore.) Nosack won his second consecutive championship 200 IM race and beat the Summit League record with a 1:46:19. 

Junior Daniela Alfaro (San Joaquin, Calif.) won the women’s 500 free, senior Riley Babson (Vail, Ariz.) won the men’s 500 free with an NCAA B-standard time and sophomore Jessica Maeda (Tigard, Ore.) won the women’s 200 IM race to finish off the Thursday night championship events. 

The third night of the competition kept the theme of dominance and success going as Denver swam their way to nine more wins and eight more NCAA standard times and cuts. 

Arky cinched three of those events, winning the women’s 100 fly event, the women’s 100 back event and the 400 medley relay with junior Ines Amrin (Santiago, Chile), senior Erika Remington (Cedarburg, Wis.) and Maeda. Arky was the first to go in the relay with the backstroke swimming style. 

Opalka won her first championship event with the 3-meter dive event. She posted an impressive 316.05 which was also an NCAA Zone Cut. Sophomore Kaelyn Hinesley (Colorado Springs, Colo.) also posted an NCAA Zone Cut score and finished second in the event behind Opalka. 

Ada Solaker won the first championship event of her young career with a win in the women’s 400 IM event. She won with a time of 4:17:94, taking the event by a little more than six seconds.

The last day of action proved to be no different from the first three days and the Crimson and Gold captured eight more individual event wins and eight more NCAA standard times from a broad podium of swimmers on the men’s and women’s roster. 

Arky got another victory in the women’s 200 back event, and Maeda won her second individual event with a victory in the women’s 200 breast event. 

Freshman Nika Spehar (Zagreb, Croatia) and sophomore Kieran Watson (Mercer Island, Wash.) swept the top spot for the women’s and men’s 1650 free event, respectively. Sophomore Dylan Wright (Cape Town, South Africa) won the men’s 200 back event and junior Alex Lynch (Austin, Texas) won the men’s 200 breast event. Sophomore Mia Moulden (Slater, Iowa) won the women’s 200 fly event and sophomore Brandon Chapman (Port Elizabeth, South Africa) won the men’s 200 fly event capping the championship action. 

In total the women’s squad recorded 1047 points, squashing the second-place South Dakota Coyotes by 351.5 points. The men’s squad recorded 902 points, similarly trouncing second-place Lindenwood University by 103.5 points. 

Four women’s divers and three men’s divers will be competing in the upcoming NCAA Zone E meet in order to qualify for the NCAA Swim and Dive Championships.  

Several swimmers and divers will also be competing in the NIC Championships if they are not invited to the NCAA championships and if they have recorded B-standard times. 

The NCAA releases new standard times every year that swimmers must meet in order to qualify for the end-of-the-season championships. The NCAA also invites only 235 men and 281 women to compete. If a swimmer records an A-standard time, which reflects that they are the fastest of the fastest, they automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships. If the swimmer records a B-standard time, they are not guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Championships and are offered to compete in other competitions such as the NIC Championships. 

For divers, if they have recorded an NCAA zone cut, they are invited to different zone meets across the country and from there can compete to qualify for the NCAA Championships. 

The Zone E meet will be on March 6-8 in Washington and the NIC Championships will take place on March 10-12 in Indiana. 

The NCAA Swim and Dive Championships will take place on March 22-25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.