EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's and women's swimming teams opened competition at the Great Lakes Valley Conference Swimming and Diving Championships on Tuesday evening at the Deaconess Aquatic Center in Evansville, Ind.
The women finished fourth in the 800-free relay while the men were eighth.
The quartet of
Justice Beard,
Kelsey Roth,
Ella Lantz and
Libby Smith swam a season best time of 7:35.83 taking nearly two seconds off their seed time. Beard swam the opening leg in a time of 1:49.00, Roth followed with a split of 1:56.81, Lantz posted a time of 1:53.77 and Smith swam the anchor leg in a time of 1:56.81. UMSL's second team in the event of
Kayla Rompala,
Madison Bottorff,
Aeri La and
Uxue Ortiz de Pinedo finished third in the second heat of the event and 13th overall with a time of 7:55.89 which was 4.77 seconds better than its seed time.
The Tritons are fourth overall in the standings with 80 points as Beard, Roth, Lantz and Smith scored 52 points while the team of Rompala, Bottorff, La and Ortiz de Pinedo picked up 28 points..
For the men, the quartet of
Mattia Nardi,
Aaron Wicklund,
Donald Saunders and
Mikael Larsson finished eighth in the event with a time of 6:43.57 dropping nearly eight seconds from its seed time and scored 44 team points. The second foursome of
Gentry Comstock,
Joan Cortadellas Llubera,
Owen Frick and
Carson Ring finished 15th overall in a time of 6:53:13 knocking off over eight seconds off its seed time and scored an additional 24 points.
The Tritons are tied for fifth place with Rockhurst at 68 points and trail Missouri S&T for fourth by six points.
Drury holds the lead on the women's side after the first day with 96 points while McKendree leads on the men's side with 94 points.
Wednesday's competition at the Deaconess Aquatic Center features the 200-yard individual medley, 50-yard freestyle, 1,000-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relay. There will be two preliminary rounds in the morning for the 200-IM and 50-free, while the other two events will be straight finals. Prelim action begins at 10 a.m. with the finals session scheduled to get underway at 5:30 p.m.
