Boise State junior Rachel Heaney swam the 200-yard butterfly in a career-best 1 minute, 57.39 seconds at the Mountain West Championships.

That got her a berth into the NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships - and now she has her sights set on a time in the 1:56s.

"I'm really satisfied with the time drop that I've had so far this season," she said, "but why stop there?"

Heaney is the 31st seed in the 200 butterfly, which will be contested Saturday in Indianapolis. She also gets to swim in the 400 individual medley Friday because she met the provisional time standard.

Heaney needs to reach the top 16 to earn All-American honors and score team points for the Broncos, who don't have anyone else at the meet.

The Broncos' seventh-year program has scored at each of the past two NCAA meets.

"We're really focused on helping her get a little bit faster," coach Kristin Hill said. "If she goes a little bit faster, she could score points."

Heaney swam in the Olympic trials last year but will make her NCAA debut this week. She grew up as a competitive swimmer in North Bend, Ore., and chose Boise State because of Hill's vision for the program.

"I could just tell she had a lot of big goals for the program and for me personally," Heaney said, "so that got me excited."

Hill liked Heaney because of her work ethic.

"She was just a fighter and she trained really hard and she had a great background aerobically from her club program," Hill said. "When you get someone who loves to work hard and they have the desire, then it gets easy to help them get faster."

Heaney has improved her time in the 200 butterfly by more than 4.5 seconds during her Boise State career.

She hopes to build momentum for her senior year this week.

"Obviously it's a goal to go again next year and maybe in more events or be a little higher placed," she said. "I'm going to go feel it out, see what it's about, have a lot of fun and try to go my best time."

Chadd Cripe: 377-6398, Twitter: @IDS_BroncoBeat