The H20 Frogs are using Saturday’s meet against the BYU Cougars as a way to guage their performance going into the start of conference competitions, said head coach Richard Sybesma.Led by senior distance swimmer Alejandro Gomez and senior sprinter Erica Tate, the Frogs were able to muster 169.5 points against the Cougars aquatic powerhouse.

“They have an advantage getting to train at altitude,” Gomez said, “but I felt good, and we had some good races.”

Junior sprinter Scott McCracken won the 50-meter freestyle event, while senior Guillermo Ramirez and junior Jonathon Berrettini helped anchor the 200 meter backstroke with first and second place finishes.

The women’s 50 meter freestyle event was taken yet again by Erica Tate with a time of 24.02 seconds.

In the second pool, the diving competition was in full swing. Led by a young crew of freshmen and sophomores, the H20 Frogs managed to put together a series of well scoring dives. The men’s team was led by their only diver, sophomore R.J. Hesselberg, while the women were paced by sophomore diver Claudia Combs and freshman Jennifer Ferguson.

“They did awesome,” Sybesma said.

The few standout performances were able to be the bench mark for where the H20 Frogs want to be in conference come February, Sybesma said.

“We need people to step up with them (the top swimmers from TCU),” Sybesma said, “If we do that we’ll be tough to beat in conference.”

Though the Cougar’s dominated most of the events, TCU used it as a stepping stone in preparation for later meets.

“It opens out mids up for what to look for in conference, and what to work on during training,” Gomez said.

The meet finished with the 200-meter freestyle relays. The Frogs took second in both the relays, but the outcome left the team with hope, Tate said.

TCU took second place by .63 seconds in the event, but not before a heroic comeback was made led by Erica Tate in the third leg of the relay.

“(It was the) last relay, you give it everything you’ve got,” Tate said.

Tate pulled the Frogs to within a few meters, but the Cougars held on to finish the relay just ahead of TCU.

“It was our first time to run the 200 freestyle relay,” Tate said. “We can’t quite tell what a good time for the event is just yet.”

Saturday’s meet marked the first time the H20 Frogs went from a meet on a Thursday evening to swimming on a Saturday afternoon, adding to the fatigue of the swimmers a bit, Tate said.

“For the second day of racing, it went well overall,” Tate said. “We look at where we need to go from here.