ECU atop standings at American Swimming Championships

HOUSTON – After two days of competition at the 2017 American Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, East Carolina sits atop the standings on the men’s side, while the women are in fourth-place at the Campus & Wellness Recreation Center Natatorium on the campus of the University of Houston.

A pair of first-place finishes helped the Pirates extend their lead to 35 points over second-place Cincinnati. ECU has earned 327 points with the Bearcats totaling 292 followed by UConn and SMU with 267 points each.

ECU senior Fran Krznaric repeated as 200-yard IM champion with a time of 1:45.71, touching 2.07 seconds in front of UConn’s Matt Dagenais.

Junior John Myhre claimed the top spot on the podium in 50-yard freestyle by 0.11 seconds ahead of James Donlevy of UConn. Myhre posted

an NCAA B qualifying time of 20.11 to earn his first individual conference

medal.

Myhre accumulated his second medal of the night as part of the men’s 200-yard freestyle relay team, which included Maxime Cadiat, Gustavo Santos and Victor Santos, posted a time of 1:20.83 to earn second-place, finishing 0.67 seconds behind SMU’s victorious foursome.

Senior Zach Duvall collected the silver medal on the 1-meter springboard with an NCAA Zone qualifying score of 310.25.

Marion Abert was the lone ECU swimmer to make the podium on the women’s side with a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle, missing gold by 0.39 seconds. She posted an ECU record and NCAA B qualifying time of 4:44.73 for her first individual conference medal.

Although she missed a spot on the medal stand, junior Tori Angermeier set the ECU record in the 200 IM with a time of 2:01.44 to finish fourth. She also joined Logan Graumann, Erin Polich and Catherine Johnson to establish the school record in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:31.67), while claiming fourth-place.

Cincinnati (235) holds a four-point lead over second-place Houston (231) on the women’s side and a 22-point cushion over third-place SMU. ECU has tallied 192 points followed by UConn (187) and Tulane (131).

Competition continues on Friday, with preliminary swimming events starting at 11 a.m. ET, followed by diving preliminaries at 1:30 ET. The finals are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. ET.