Feb. 28, 2002

OKLAHOMA CITY - The UNLV women's swimming team jumped out to a 17-point lead after the second day of the 2002 Mountain West Conference Championships on Thursday. The Rebels will enter Friday's events with a 219-202 lead over BYU.

The UNLV men's team currently sits in second place behind the Cougars, who lead the meet by 124.5 points. The BYU diving team has dominated the meet and outscored the UNLV men's divers by 152 points (184-32).

UNLV opened the day with a 1-2 finish in the men's 500 free. Jacint Simon took first place in an NCAA soft-cut time of 4:24.89. Paul Valen followed in 4:30.27. Andrew Livingston took third.

The Rebel women matched the men's feat in the 500 free with a 1-2 finish of their own. Alyson Noble took first in 4:50.15, just missing Lorena Diaconescu's conference record by a half a second. Dana Penn took second in 4:55.43.

BYU's Gary Tan took first in the men's 200 IM, just edging out UNLV's Quincy Schmidt. Patrick Adams took fourth and Quinten Allen finished eighth.

Diaconescu won the women's 200 IM in a conference-record time of 2:02.63, breaking the record she set in the prelims earlier that day. Julie Unrau took eighth, followed by Lindsey Whipple in tenth.

Michael Short took second in the men's 50 free, missing first by six-hundreths of a second. Short finished in 20.56, while BYU's Brent Parker took first in 20.50. Jonathan Hugo finished fourth in 20.61.

Madalina Tin, coming off surgery just weeks ago, took second in the women's 50 free in a time of 23.47. BYU's Heidi Lietz took first in 23.37.

The men's team of Short, Hugo, Bjorn Eriksson and Schmidt won the final meet of the evening, the 200 free relay. They won in a soft-cut NCAA time of 1:20.44. The women's team of Tin, Penn, Timery Chambers and Lindsey Whipple took third in 1:34.60.

Prelims for the third day of competition begin on Friday at 11 a.m. Finals begin at 6 p.m.