Swimming and diving teams sweep New Mexico State at Hillenbrand

Arizona Daily Wildcat

The UA men's and women's swimming and diving teams swept New Mexico State by scores of 142-93 and 164-110, respectively, Friday afternoon at Hillenbrand Aquatic Center.

The UA women became the first Arizona team to begin the dual season 5-0. The men improved their dual meet record to 3-1.

Laurie Kline won the 1,000-meter freestyle and the 200 individual medley, while Martin Pepper won the 50 butterfly and the 100 backstroke.

Freshman diver Kerri Hallinen won her first event as a Wildcat by scoring an NCAA-qualifying total of 254.78 points in the 1-meter event. Sophomore Melanie Mabry won the 3-meter event with a total of 268.8 points. Senior Brian Spears swept the diving events on the men's side with scores of 291 on the 1-meter and 323.1 on the 3-meter.

Volleyball loses to ASU on road

The Arizona women's volleyball team, needing a win to stay in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth, lost in five sets Friday to Arizona State in the Pacific 10 Conference finale for both teams.

The No. 13 Sun Devils dropped the first game but rallied to win 10-15, 15-8, 10-15, 15-10, 15-12 in front of 1,871 fans in Tempe.

The loss, Arizona's 11th in its last 13 matches against the Sun Devils, could spell the end of the Wildcats' postseason hopes. At 14-12 overall and 6-12 in the Pac-10, Arizona needs to upset No. 2 Hawaii next week to stay in contention for a bid.

The match was an example of two teams heading in opposite directions. No. 23 Arizona has lost nine of its last 11 matches, while ASU has won four straight. It was Arizona's third five-set loss in as many weeks.

In the first game, it looked as if Arizona was going to reverse that trend. Junior outside hitter Barb Bell had five kills and sophomore Carolyn Penfield had four kills and a block in the game.

After ASU rallied to take the second game, Arizona again came out strong behind Bell and senior Heather Flachsbarth to take the third. But ASU took the next game to force the fifth.

ŸRon Parsons

Club rugby wins invitational

The UA club rugby team won the inaugural Domino's Wildcat Invitational at Arizona's Rincon Vista Fields on Saturday with a 70-0 shutout of UC-San Diego.

En route to the championship, the Wildcats (5-0) defeated Northern Arizona 27-3 in the opening round and shut out New Mexico 10-0 in the second round.

In the championship game, the Wildcats scored 12 tries with five conversions over the Tritons. Chris Kron scored four tries for Arizona.

Read Next Article