Trinity Remains Atop the Field at the 2014 SCAC Men's Swimming & Diving Championship

ROCKWALL, Texas -- The Trinity University men, buoyed by another individual win by Stephen Culberson and a dominating performance in the 200 freestyle relay, continue to expand its lead and now own a 143.5 point lead at the 2014 SCAC Men's Swimming & Diving Championship. Official Website | Friday's Complete Results | Team Scores | Video Recap

Trinity currently has 547 points to lead University of California-Santa Cruz and Southwestern University, who are tied for second with 403.5 points. Colorado College is fourth with 297 points, Centenary College is fifth with 274 points and Austin College stands at sixth with 77 points.

In the opening event of the night, freshman Juan Tapia of Centenary College gave the Gents their first individual win of the 2014 meet and placed first in the 400 IM in a time of 4:08.33. The events defending champion, sophomore Nikita Chirkov of Trinity, finished second with a time of 4:09.83 and teammate and fellow sophomore Will Clinton claimed third-place with a finish of 4:10.70.

Trinity junior Stephen Culberson picked up his second individual title of the meet with a victory in the 100 fly. Teammate and sophomore Tom Jones was second in 50.49 and UC-Santa Cruz freshman Ivan Garin placed third in a finishing time of 50.80.

Centenary quickly picked up its second individual title when senior Austin Butler repeated in the 200 free and finished in a NCAA 'B' cut qualifying time of 1:41.14. Sophomore Andrew Thiesse was second in a time of 1:42.28 and freshman Mason Emery of UC-Santa Cruz was third with a finishing time of 1:42.30.

Junior Kyler Wood of Southwestern broke the SCAC championship meet record in Friday morning's prelims (56.48) and although he didn't match that mark in the finals, his finishing time of 57.10 was good enough to earn him his first career individual title. Both his prelim and finals time were NCAA 'B' cut quality as was the time of second-place finisher freshman Casey Colella of UC-Santa Cruz (57.46). UC-Santa Cruz's sophomore JJ Amis was third with a finishing time of 58.47.

Colorado College junior Christopher Garrity closed out Friday's individual schedule with his first career SCAC championship meet win as he outkicked the competition in the 100 backstroke. Garrity's winning time of 52.09 was just ahead of senior Mitchell Foster of Centenary, who finished second in a time of 52.47. Freshman Isaac Johnson of Trinity finished third in 53.00.

Perhaps the most impressive performance of the evening came in the final event of the night, the men's 200 yard freestyle relay. Junior Adam Thomas along with Culberson, Johnson and junior Kevin Thomas finished in a SCAC championship and open record of 1:21.64. The time, which also meets the NCAA 'B' cut standard, would have been good enough for a seventh-place finish at the 2013 NCAA Division III national championship meet.

Competition comes to a conclusion on Saturday with preliminaris beginning at 10:30 a.m., and finals at 6:30 p.m. A special senior recognition will precede the finals and is scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m. Click here for the complete schedule of events.