By Vincent Rupena – Spear Reporter
Reka Kovacs competing in the 200-yard butterfly relay for San Jose State. I Photo by Andrew Hartley – The Spear
San Jose State swim and dive team finished eighth at the Mountain West Championship in Houston, Texas on February 21-24.
There were many excellent performances although, SJSU may not have finished very high in the competition.
The biggest star of the tournament was Spartan sophomore diver Jenna Jagielski.
She placed third in the 1-meter diving finals with a score of 323.40 on day one of the competition. On day two she continued to shine, once again placing third but this time in the 3-meter diving finals with a score of 349.60.
On the final day, she followed up her previous performances by scoring 285.45 in the platform dive which broke the SJSU record.
Jagielski was not the only Spartan to break a school record during the Mountain West Championship. Junior Ela Freiman broke the SJSU record for the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:00.28.
Another notable event was the 200-yard butterfly finals where fifth-year Réka Kovács finished fifth with a time of 1:59.52.
As a team, SJSU experienced some success on the first day of the competition. The Spartans finished fourth in the 800-yard freestyle relay.
There were no other relay races that the Spartans managed to finish within the top five.
One major error that eliminated an opportunity for the Spartans occurred during the 200-yard freestyle relay. SJSU got disqualified in the middle of the race for a swimmer taking off early.
Costly errors come out at the worst times late in a season even with over two weeks of preparation time.
After finishing seventh on day one, sixth on day two, and eighth on day three, the Spartans ended the Mountain West Championship with 591 points, firmly planting them in eighth place overall.