First Night Action

The highlight of the first night - ALL FIVE DIVERS PLACE IN FINALS!!
An awesome display by Coach Hixon's crew, led by senior RJ Rappe winning the 1 Meter Board for the 4th straight year and setting an Atlantic 10 Record. He was followed by freshman Adam Duffield on the podium in 3rd, John Clark (FR) in 5th, Byron Johnson 7th, and another freshman, Zack Lichter in 8th. This crew put 73 points on the scoreboard.

Our swimmers were solid, but like I said, there are a lot of great swimmers and teams here this year. The 200 Medley relay was led off by The Big Hoss, Andrew Willbrant with a lifetime best 23.66, followed by lifetime best split by Pat'the leprechaun' Kuehne (26.3). Nate was a little off on his split but will re-group tomorrow and Juan brought it home in a 20.2. The 800 free relay was again solid, but not quite where we wanted to be. Max Butler and Drew Talarick swam the middle legs in lifetime bests, while AJ led off a little tight but again he'll put it together later in the meet. Derek Castallana finished in a strong and easy 1:42 to place the squad in 4th.

We just had a team meeting to focus on tomorrow's events and understand that no team is going to just roll over for us - we have to take the championship by tremendous swimming performances.

UMass leads the meet with 135 points followed by St. Bonaventure with 104. Tomorrow we have our distance crew going at the 500 for the first time - this coach is psyched to see those swims to say the least. That will be followed by the 200 IM (Watch out for Willbrant), and the 50 Freestyle. At night there will also be the 200 Free Relay.
GO UMASS