LEWISVILLE, Texas -- After another big night in the pool, the Southwestern University men extended their lead through the second day of competition at the 2017 SCAC Swimming and Diving Championships at the LISD Westside Aquatic Center. Official Website | Thursday's Complete Results | Team Scores
After leading by 14 points heading into the second night of action, the Pirates have accumulated a team score of 352 points and hold a 94.5 point lead over second-place Trinity University. The Texas Tigers have 257.5 points.
Rounding out the team scores after Day Two, Colorado College is in third place with a team score of 213 points, Centenary College is fourth with 163.5 points, Austin College is fifth with 139 points and McMurry is sixth with 113 points. SCAC newcomer University of the Ozarks has yet to score.
The Pirates made it three-for-three in relays as they led the night off with a victory in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The foursome of Michael Glover, Matt Sluss, Nathan Townsend and Simmon Belaineh touched the wall in a time of 1:23.51 to take first place and snap Trinity's five-year stranglehold on the event. The Texas Tigers finished second in a time of 1:23.84 and Colorado College was third with a finishing time of 1:26.19.
Trinity freshman Jacob Hurrell-Zitelman took home first in the 500 freestyle with a finishing time of 4:36.30. Southwestern piled up the points by taking the next three positions, including a second-place finish by freshman Todd Coachman (4:39.84) and third-place finish by senior Shelby Hall (4:46.16).
Freshman Eric Dallesasse of Colorado College became the first swimmer in program history to win the 200 yard IM, coming home in a time of 1:53.73. Once again, Pirates touched the wall in second and third as junior Matt Sluss (1:55.78) and Mickey Scharbrough (1:56.82) picked up silver and bronze medals for Southwestern.
In the evening's final event, the 50 free, Southwestern swimmers became just the second trio to finish 1-2-3 in conference history in the event (Trinity did it in 2015) as senior Simmon Belaineh, junior Michael Glover and senior Nathan Townsend took top honors. Belaineh, whose winning time was 20.89, is the first Pirate to every win the event.
Competition continues on Friday with preliminaries beginning at 10:30 a.m., women's and men's finals at 6 p.m. Click here for the complete schedule of events.