Four records fall on day one of MAACs
KARADIMAS PART OF TWO SCHOOL RECORDS ON DAY ONE OF MAACs
SMITHFIELD, R.I. – The Bryant University men's swimming and diving team set four school records on day one of the 2013 MAAC Swimming and Diving Championships Thursday in Buffalo, N.Y.
After six events, the Bulldogs find themselves in sixth place with 101 points. Marist is in the lead with 191 points, Rider is in second with 174 and Canisius is in third with 151.5. Saint Peter's, Loyola, Bryant, Fairfield, Manhattan, Niagara and Iona are 4-10 and round out the scoring on day one.
After setting 16 program records at the ECAC Championships a year ago, the Black and Gold began their assault on the record book on day one at the MAACs. The first record to fall was in the 200 free relay as the team of Alex Kosenski (Lavallette, N.J.), Nicholas Karadimas (New Milford, Conn.), John Lawson (Bernardsville, N.J.) and Joshua Bjornberg (Wallingford, Conn.) finished third with a time of 1:23.53, just under three tenths of a second faster than the previous record.
Bryant followed that with another pool record in the second relay of the evening, the 400 medley relay. Once again, Kosenski and Bjornberg were members of the relay team and were joined by Cameron Hessler (Southbury, Conn.) and Graham Beck (Danvers, Mass.). The quartet finished in fourth-place with a time of 3:23.78, almost two seconds faster than the record that was set last year.
Individually, the Bulldogs had three swimmers final on the first day and none were more exciting than Karadimas. A finalist in the 50 free, Karadimas broke Kosenski's school record by two one hundredths of a second, finishing second with a time of 20.75. Kosenski also finaled in the 50 free, finishing fifth with a time of 21.02. Beck was Bryant's other finalist on the evening, finishing 13th in the 500 free with a time of 4:42.85. In the preliminaries, Beck broke the school record in the 500 with a time of 4:42.43, three one-hundredths of a second faster than the previous time he set last year at the ECACs. Bryant's first-ever male diver, Conor Makepeace (Wallingford, Conn.) finished 13th in the 3 meter dive with a total of 201.90 points.
The championship meet continues on Friday with events beginning at 10:00 a.m. Fans can follow the events live by CLICKING HERE.