ROCKWALL, Texas -- The Trinity University men, behind individual wins in two of three events, jumped into the lead as the second day of competition at the 2015 SCAC Swimming and Diving Championships concluded Thursday evening at the Rockwall ISD. Official Website | Thursday's Complete Results | Team Scores | Video Recap
In third place at the beginning of the day, Trinity has posted 351 points to charge ahead of both Southwestern University and Colorado College. Southwestern, who was in first after Day One, slipped to second and has 328 points. Colorado College fell a spot from second to third and has 212 points, Centenary College is fourth with 199 points, Austin College is fifth with 123 points and McMurry University sits at sixth with 98 points.
The Trinity 200 freestyle relay team of Kevin Thomas, Adam Thomas, Stephen Culberson and Isaac Johnson opened Thursday's evening session with a record-setting performance. The foursome broke the SCAC championship meet and open record - set a year ago by the same quartet - with a finishing time of 1:21.37. The time broke the old mark of 1:21.64 and was good for a NCAA 'B' cut.
In the men's 500 freestyle, Trinity junior Andrew Thiesse defended his title with a finishing time of 4:36.23. The time was also good for a NCAA 'B' cut. Southwestern swimmers placed second and third as freshman Michael Glover touched at 4:43.01 and sophomore Shelby Hall followed at 4:43.58.
In the men's 200 IM, Southwestern got huge performances from four first-year swimmers as the quartet occupied places 1-4 on the awards stand - led by Matt Sluss who touched first in a time of 1:53.55. Alex Villarreal was second in a time of 1:54.88, Mickey Scharbrough was third in a time of 1:55.16 and Julian Smith finished fourth in 1:55.63. It was the first All-SCAC sweep in any event in conference meet history for the Pirates.
In the men's 50 free, the final event of the evening, defending Stephen Culberson broke his own SCAC meet record as the senior blazed to a 20.21 finish, notching a NCAA 'B' cut and just missing the SCAC open record of 20.17 (John Cook, DePauw, 2009). Replicating Southwestern's 1-2-3-4 finish in the 200 IM, senior Adam Thomas finished second in a time of 20.86, sophomore Isaac Johnson was third in a time of 21.07 and senior Kevin Thomas was fourth with a finishing time of 21.16.
Competition continues on Friday with preliminaris beginning at 10:30 a.m., and finals at 6:30 p.m. Click here for the complete schedule of events.