ST. GEORGE — Two Utah Tech women earned Western Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors as the college sports season shifted from fall to winter.
Women’s basketball guard Breaunna Gillen, a 5-foot-9 senior from West Jordan, Utah, was named WAC Player of the Week after the Trailblazers hosted and beat in-state rival Utah State 95-57 Tuesday night.
Gillen recorded a double-double in a season-opening 87-74 loss to PAC-12 foe Washington with 21 points and 11 assists. In the Trailblazers’ first win of the season against Benedictine Mesa, Gillen recorded another double-double with 17 points and 10 assists.
Trailblazer coach JD Gustin said a combination of good defense and extra effort on offense were the keys to victory.
“Tonight we did a nice job of mixing our defenses and keeping Utah State on their toes,” Gustin said in a news release. “The best thing about tonight was our defensive intensity. I was a little bit disappointed at halftime with our rebounding efforts. Our intent and focus was good.
“There was a lot of emotion in this game and I think once we settled down and finished shots at the rim it opened up our perimeter game and made us tough to guard. Proud of the way we played tonight.”
Utah Tech was picked seventh by both coaches and media as the Western Athletic Conference Announced its 2022-23 women’s basketball preseason polls Monday. Utah Tech had two players selected by the coaches to the WAC Preseason First Team in Gillen and Emily Isaacson.
Swimming
Utah Tech will close out the 2022 team portion of its season by hosting the 2nd Annual Trailblazer Invitational, which runs Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 17-20, at the UT HPC Pool. Click here to livestream the events.
The meet will begin each day with morning preliminary sessions at 10 a.m., followed by evening finals sessions at 5 p.m. The Trailblazers will swim against BYU, Northern Colorado, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Fresno State, Nevada, Pepperdine, Cal Poly and Pacific. In addition, BYU, UCSD, UCSB, Cal Poly and Pacific will compete in a five-team men’s dual meet.
Utah Tech broke one school record and claimed three event victories in a Saturday dual at San Diego State.
Junior Ginerva Molino, a transfer student-athlete from Florida State University, set the tone for the Trailblazers in the first individual event of the meet as she broke the school record in the 1,000-yard freestyle by more than five seconds with an event-winning time of 10 minutes, 22 seconds. Molino also placed second in the 200 individual medley later in the morning with a season-best time of 2:08.38.
Freshman Lily Magda posted her second 500-free race victory in as many meets as she touched the wall first in a season-best time of 5:07.36. Magda, who also placed second in the 1,000 free (10:28.00; No. 3 3 all-time at UT), paced the Blazers in the 500 as UT swept the top three spots overall, with sophomore Paulina Sansores (5:10.71) and junior Gabbie Adams placing second and third, respectively.
Junior Pia Murray also won the 200 back for the second-straight meet by clocking the second-fastest event time in program history with a 2:02.25.
Volleyball
Utah Tech also got some good news Monday when the WAC announced Whittnee Nihipali was named Offensive Player of the Week.
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