SMU swimming and diving team starts strong at the Conference USA championship

by PegNews wire

Both the men and women's swimming and diving team took off with a good start at the Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championships in Houston. The 200 medley and 800 free relays were held tonight as both Mustang squads were victorious.

The Mustangs swam a season-best time of 1:41.03 to take first place in the 200 medley relay. Anja Carman, Tamara Sambrailo, Angela San Juan Cisneros and Petra Klosova combined to post a NCAA B qualifying time.

In the men's 200 medley relay, Ian Clark, Alex Hetland, Luka Vrtovec and Thomas Fadnes shattered the previous season-best time as they clocked in at 1:26.72, taking first-place and setting a new school record.

The men competed in the one-meter diving event tonight as Preston Holcombe placed third with a mark of 273.10 after scoring 256.80 in the prelims earlier today.

The women knocked four seconds off their previous season-best time en route to claiming first in the 800 free relay. Jennifer Blackman, Klosova, Katie Roberts and Celina Lemmen posted a NCAA qualifying A time of 7:10.41.

Continuing the record setting ways, the men's 800 free relay team of Maverick Smalley, Shane Milu, Hetland and Vrtovec posted a NCAA B qualifying time of 6:34.23 for first-place.

However, the results remain unofficial due to the difficulties of Marshall's team travel. The Thundering Herd was stranded at the airport in Columbus, Ohio, for a day due to heavy snow in the area. The team did not land in Houston until around 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, only 90 minutes before the official start of the meet.

As a result, the C-USA coaches agreed to allow Marshall to swim as a team in the 200-yard medley relay after the preliminaries during one of the next few days. Marshall's time will then be added to the unofficial results and the results scored accordingly.

The meet resumes at 10 a.m., Thursday with the preliminaries of the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle. The women's 3-meter diving preliminaries will begin around 1 p.m. The finals for those events are slated to begin around 6 p.m.

Source: SMU