DENVER - New Mexico State's Aliena Schmidtke and Nevada's Grace Huang have been named the Verizon WAC Swimmer and Diver of the week, respectively, for the week of Nov. 14-21.
Schmidtke , a freshman from Bad Segeberg, Germany, helped the Aggies to a third-place team finish at the Houston Invitational. She set three school records in the three-day event. Schmidtke set a program record with a time of 50.51 in the 100 freestyle, good for a fifth-place finish. She also swam the first leg of the 400-freestyle relay that crushed the school record (3:24.56) and finished in fourth place. She broke the school record in the 200 freestyle in the prelims and improved her time in the finals with a second-place showing of 1:48.24. Her performance was also an NCAA 'B' cut and the fastest time recorded by a WAC swimmer this season.
Huang, a sophomore from Kaohsiung City, Taiwan (Jhong Jheng HS), picked up two top-five finishes on the weekend at the competitive Wildcat Diving Invitational, which featured over 50 divers from 16 schools, including six Pac-12 schools. Huang finished third in the 3-meter diving competition (300.60) and fourth in the platform discipline (224.10). On the 1-meter board, the only event where Huang failed to advance out of the preliminaries, she rallied to win the consolation title with a score of 272.10. Her score on the platform was the best in the WAC this season, giving Huang the top score in the conference in all three diving disciplines.
Other swimmers nominated: Fresno State sophomore Brittany Buna ... Hawai'i junior Rachel Cotte... Idaho freshman Rachel Millet ... Northern Arizona sophomore Rachel Palmer ... San Jose State senior Kirsten Trammell.
Other divers nominated: Idaho junior Paige Hunt ... Northern Arizona junior Kristy Ardavanis.