The Colorado State swimming and diving team capped off a perfect 5-0 week in dual meets with wins over Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado last weekend.

The first meet of the weekend came Saturday afternoon when the Rams faced off against the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks at Moby Pool. Coming off three consecutive wins against Mountain West opponents earlier in the week, CSU looked to put away the Lumberjacks, defending champions of the Western Athletic Conference. CSU won the dual meet in a close fashion finishing with a 123-120 win to advance to a record of 6-3 on the season.

Going into the final four events of the night, CSU and NAU were tied at 80. The Rams won the proceeding three events to take the lead they would not relinquish. Junior Tonicia Thomas won the 100 back stroke with a time of 55.69 to begin the successful trio of events. Freshman Maddie Ward and junior Haley Rowley won the breaststroke and 500 freestyle, respectively, to give the Rams breathing room heading into the final event. 

“We were counting on them,” head coach Christopher Woodard said in a statement. “We were in a position where we basically had to win all three of those, just in case we couldn’t win the final relay. They were clutch.”

Northern Arizona won both diving events of the day and started the swimming with a victory over the Rams in the 200 medley relay. CSU’s first victory of the day took place in the 1000 free with Junior Haley Rowley finishing with a time of (10:18.41)

CSU’s next meet was a dual meet at Northern Colorado on Sunday in Greeley. The Rams defeated Northern Colorado 145-98 to get their fifth victory in a row as they count down to the Mountain West Championship next month.

During this meet, CSU won the 400 medley relay during the first swimming event of the day. A finishing time of 3:54.19 behind the talents of Thomas, Ward, sophomore Marie Goodwin and senior Rowan Hauber was enough to lift the Rams over the Bears.

Rowley recorded two other big wins for the Rams winning the 1000 freestyle with a time of 19:19.84 and the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:01.83, five seconds faster than the second place finisher.

The dive team was led by freshman Skylar Williams, placing second in the 1-meter dive and third in the 3-meter dive.

“Today was another good learning experience for us,” dive coach Chelsea Popplewell said. “We are learning how to perform on back-to-back days, which we will have to do at the conference meet. Meets like this are valuable for our group.”

The final dual meet of the season will take place at Moby Pool on Jan. 26 at 4 p.m.

Collegian sports reporter Evan Grant can be reached by email at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @EGrantSports.