St. Peter, Minn. – After the opening day of the 2013 MIAC Championships, the Gustavus Adolphus men’s swimming and diving team is in fourth place with 124 points. The Gusties turned in three All-Conference performances thanks to one relay and two individuals. St. Olaf is the men’s leader after day one with 212 points. St. Thomas sits in second with 175 points, while Carleton is ahead of Gustavus in third with 158 points. The 2013 MIAC Swimming & Diving Championships are being held over the weekend at the Aquatic Center on the campus of the University of Minnesota.
“I was very pleased with how both the men and women swam,” said head coach Jon Carlson. “Zac Solis had a great swim to place second in the 500 free, and Bennet Woltjer came through a third place finish in diving.”
Zac Solis (So., Centennial, Colo.) provided Gustavus’ top individual performance of the day with a runner-up finish in the 500 freestyle to take home the second All-Conference award of his career. Solis touched the wall in 4:36.53, hitting the NCAA B cut standard with his time. Tanner Roe of St. Olaf was able to edge Solis by just over one second with a winning time of 4:35.12.
To close out the swimming events in the pool on Thursday night, Dante Colucci (Fr., Summit, N.J.), Jacob Stern (Fr., Rosemount, Minn.), Ross Larson (So., Brookings, S.D.), and Kurt Youngdahl (So., Wayzata, Minn.) garnered All-Conference distinction after teaming up to finish second in the 400-medley relay with a time of 3:26.62
The Black and Gold’s final All-MIAC performance of the evening came on the diving board where Bennet Woltjer (Fr., Willmar, Minn.) scored a 430.05 to place third in the one-meter competition.
Other top individual swimmers on the night included Kurt Youngdahl, David Kramer (Sr., Burnsville, Minn.), and Tommy Payne (Fr., Montevideo, Minn.). Youngdahl finished fifth in the 200 individual medley (1:56.34), Kramer took eighth in the 200 IM (2:00.98), and Payne finished eighth in the 50 freestyle (21.68).
Following each race, all eight finalists were honored with a podium awards ceremony during Thursday night’s session, and the top three finishers in each event received MIAC All-Conference honors and medals for their achievement. Thursday’s updated team scores and All-Conference honorees in each event are listed below, and complete results from the session are available online here.
The MIAC Championships continue Friday with two more sessions, followed by the final two on Saturday. The preliminary round begins at 10:30 a.m. with the finals set to start Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. All remaining sessions will be broadcast live online by Webcast America (click here) and all will also have live results available.
In addition, the MIAC has set up an exclusive Web site for the 2013 MIAC Swimming and Diving Championships. The site features an event schedule, ticket information, venue information and a map, as well as links to the live broadcast and live results, and the site will be constantly updated throughout the event with heat sheets, recaps, photos and more.