Boise State Swimmers in Second Place at Prestigious Rice Invitational

Blue Through and Through is first in Idaho with this news..

Five of the top swimming teams in the nation have converged on Houston, Texas for the Rice Invitational and Boise State is in second place after the first day of competition.

Through the first five events, Arkansas leads with 335 points after winning three events.  Boise State has 217 points, followed by defending Conference USA champion Rice with 199, Nebraska with 167 and the University of Houston with 83.

The story for Boise State is that that the two fastest 50-yard freestyle swimmers were Broncos.  The amazing tandem of Stephanie North (23.83) and Amber Boucher (23.87) finished 1-2, well ahead of the field.  The Broncos' 400-yard medley relay team of Jessica Bottelberghe, Heather Harper, Amber Boucher and Stephanie North got the team off to a great start this morning with a time of 51.13, just 12/100th's of a second behind first place Arkansas.  Jenn Cahill finished seventh in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:02.60 as Arkansas swept the top three positions.  Bottelberghe placed 6th in the 200 IM (2:08.75).  The first day is now complete as the Boise State 800-yard freestyle relay team touched in 7:35.57, second only to Arkansas.

Still a lot of swimming to do tomorrow with 13 events, but a great first day for Boise State!  

Boise State Cross Country Teams Ready to Battle in Mountain West Championships

The Bronco men's and women's cross country teams will face the best the Mountain West Conference has to offer tomorrow at the MW Championships in Fort Collins, Colorado.

There will be a 6-kilometer course for the women and an 8-k for the men.  The Boise State men are #12 in the Western Region, behind #7 New Mexico, #8 Air Force, #10 Colorado State and #11 Wyoming.  On the women's side, New Mexico is the favorite as the Lobo women are ranked #20 in the nation.  Colorado State is fifth in the Mountain Region, TCU is #11 in the South and Air Force and Wyoming are #12 and #13 in the West.  The Bronco women entered the regional rankings for the first time in school history last week at #14.

Andrew Booth, David Elliott, Vince Hamilton, Kyle Merritt, Drew O-donoghue-McDonald, Dakota Parker, John Robinson and Allan Schroeder will race for the Boise State men while Emma Bates, Shea Hanson, Kate Jette, Lauren Lucas, Eric McLaghlin, Tessa Murray, Taryn Treadway and Marisa VanderMalle are set to go for the women.

The Championships get underway at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

Bronco Swim Team in Houston

The Boise State swimming and diving team will see how it stacks up against competition from the South in the Rice Invitational this weekend.  Action gets underway at 3 this afternoon.