ELKHART, Ind. – The Milligan University men's and women's swim teams began competition at the NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championships in Elkhart, Ind. on Wednesday evening, as a quartet of relay squads entered the pool for the opening night of the event.
The opening day of the NAIA Championships included the 200 Yard Medlay Relay on both the men's and women's sides, as well as the 800 Yard Freestyle Relay on both sides.
In the women's 200 Medley Relay, the group including
Abbie Christensen,
Teagan Jose,
Abigail Maniace and
Madison Akbari ended up placing 12
th out of 16 squads with a time of 1:48.33, which was the squad's fastest of the campaign.
On the men's side of that event, it equaled the highest finish of the night for a Milligan group, as
Paxton Smith,
Robert Adam,
RJ Brumit and
Caleb Fry teamed up to finish fourth as a team with a season-best time of 1:28.64.
The women's 800 Freestyle Relay was next, as they concluded the night in sixth place to grab a few points towards the team's efforts.
Riley Renaud, Maniace,
Emily Newman and
Mary Grace Bitting teamed up to obliterate their previous best this season by nearly 12 seconds at 7:41.19.
The Buffaloes' group consisting of
Christoph Haenel, Adam,
Sergio Tudor and
Gellert Szedlak all contributed to the 800 Freestyle Relay squad's standout 6:38.80 performance to place fifth and nab the Buffs a few more points on the men's side. Haenel swam a 200 Freestyle time of 1:38.31 in the first leg of the race, which equals a new Milligan record time.
Events continue on Thursday morning, as the Buffs currently sit in fourth place on the men's side with 58 points and eighth place for the women with 36 points. Preliminaries for the 500 Yard Freestyle, 200 Yard Individual Medley and 50 Yard Freestyle begin at 9 a.m. ET. Those events will have their finals during the evening session, as well as the 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, as the session is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET.
RESULTS
