Cougars finish sixth on women's, men's sides at Canada West meet

QUICKLY

• The University of Regina's swimming teams finished in sixth place on both the men's side and the women's side at the 2025 Canada West Championships held over the weekend in Lethbridge, Alta.

WOMEN'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Both competing in their first Canada West meet, the Cougars were led on the women's side by Mekayla Erpelo and Aubry Haldorson as the pair of first-year swimmers both scored in three separate events for a total of 14 points.
• Haldorson and Jada Dickinson tied for the highest individual finish on the women's side. Haldorson was 11th in the 200-metre breaststroke and Dickinson matched that with an 11th-place effort in the 800-metre freestyle.
• The Cougars compiled a total of 145.5 points at the three-day meet. Besides the 14 points put up by Erpelo and Haldorson, Dickinson finished with 12 points, Kelsey Jones recorded 10, Chloe Hegi had 8.5, and Sadie Anderson finished with 7. The team's other 80 points were all earned in the relays.
• Hegi and Jones continue to threaten U SPORTS standards. Hegi had a personal-best time of 26.51 seconds in the 50-metre freestyle, just 0.16 seconds off the U SPORTS qualification standard of 26.35 seconds in the event. Jones' time of 33.27 seconds in the 50-metre breaststroke was only 0.32 seconds slower than the U SPORTS standard of 32.95 seconds.
• The women's team combined for 18 personal bests at the conference meet.

MEN'S HIGHLIGHTS

• The men's squad was also led by a first-year swimmer. Isaac Currie had the highest individual finish for a U of R swimmer on either team, qualifying for the A final in the 200-metre individual medley and swimming to a seventh-place finish with a personal-best time of 2:05.64. Currie earned 12 points for that performance and also finished 15th in the 400-metre individual medley, giving him a team-leading 14 points for the meet.
• The men's team finished with a total of 133 points. After Currie, the Cougars got a total of 13 points from Matthew Brough, 10 by Oleksii Kolesov, 7 from Reese Nelson, 4 by Declan Bennett, and 1 from Ethan Elliott.
• The team earned 84 points in the relays, including a fourth-place finish in the 4x200-metre freestyle where Currie, Brough, Elliott, and Kolesov combined to put up a time of 7:36.60.
• Elliott and Currie are also closing in on U SPORTS standards. Elliott had a time of 23.17 seconds in the 50-metre freestyle (22.95 seconds is the U SPORTS standard) while Currie's time in the 200 IM was just over a second and a half off the U SPORTS standard of 2:03.91.
• The men's team collected 15 personal-best times over the three days.

NEXT UP

• The Cougars will take a break from competition until the mid-January Winter Classic in Regina at the Lawson Aquatic Centre. The season wraps up at the 2026 U SPORTS Championships to be held in Markham, Ont. from Mar. 12 through Mar. 14.